Unlikely hospital team buys medical equipment. (partnership between Carl T. Hayden Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Phoenix Memorial Hospital)

A private hospital has teamed with a federal hospital to provide a $2 million high-tech machine to patients to avoid duplication of medical services.

For the first time in its 48 years, the Carl T. Hayden Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Phoenix has entered into a partnership to purchase a major piece of medical equipment. It signed a contract in partnership with Phoenix Memorial Hospital to acquire a magnetic resonance imagining machine.

The partnership will allow both hospitals to use the expensive MRI technology and share its cost. An MRI machine costs at least $1 million.

This comes at a time when Valley hospitals are quick to buy expensive medical …