A recent National Health Board Wakatipu Health Services report recommended there should be a CT scanner for inland Otago, based at the Lakes District Hospital at Queenstown.
The company that runs Dunstan Hospital at Clyde, Central Otago Health Services Ltd (COHSL), has been lobbying for three years for a scanner to be based at Dunstan.
The Southern District Health Board decided last month the scanner location should be determined by the communities reaching consensus on the issue.
Meetings have been arranged by the Central Otago health company next week in Cromwell, Alexandra and Wanaka, to gauge support for a scanner at Dunstan.
Mrs Dean did not indicate her preference for a scanner site but said the decision "must come down to what's most beneficial for local patients".
"Obviously each community wants to secure this diagnostic equipment for themselves - but I'd suggest parochialism needs to be set aside, while the most effective and efficient use of the scanner is determined.
"Support from local clinicians and the community, along with a business plan that stacks up, must also be identified."
Funding for capital and running costs would have to come from the community and that would require a commitment over time, which people had to be realistic about, Mrs Dean said.
In background information on Dunstan's case, COHSL chairman Russell McGeorge said 1067 Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes residents travelled to Dunedin or Invercargill for publicly funded CT scans in 2010.
Of that figure, 312 were from the Lakes District Hospital "catchment" and 755 from the Dunstan Hospital catchment, which includes Wanaka.
