In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, radiology departments are adopting new and innovative ways of operating that allow them to improve operations, patient satisfaction, and outcomes.
Throughout this article, you will learn seven ways that digitization, virtualization, and integration can help radiologists improve the efficiency and quality of patient care by creating a seamless workflow centered on the patient.
7 Ways Radiology Can Save Your Life
#1 Preventing No-Shows And Keeping Patients Safe With Digital Engagement
Hospitals seek to ease patients’ anxiety and ensure their safe return to radiology appointments after COVID-19. Some radiology departments struggle with patient no-show rates of up to 7%.
A patient no-show disrupts workflow, leaves equipment and staff underutilized, and may cost an imaging center a lot in wasted time. You can prevent patient no-shows by talking to your patients about Illinois Medicare Advantage Part C plans.
#2 Automating Workflows Helps Staff Create Accurate Images On The First Try
Radiology technologists struggle with performing scans that are of high quality and accurate the first time. Nevertheless, individual differences in training and experience are likely to impact outcomes.
Technologists are often under pressure to get the test appropriately done if patients are restless, which means you can redo the test.
#3 You Can Virtually Acquire Radiology Images Through A Command Center
Imaging practices with multiple scanning locations often have difficulty finding highly experienced technology specialists who understand advanced modalities like MRI and CT. Until recently, these experts would have to drive hundreds of miles from their central office to help out their less experienced colleagues.
#4 Prioritizing The Most Urgent Cases Is Made Possible By Intelligent Workload Balancing
Prioritizing and deciding which radiologists should be assigned imaging cases can be challenging. At any given time, there is always a requirement for radiologists. So it becomes essential to prioritize the urgent over the less critical cases.
#5 Physicians Can Gain Deeper Insight Into Patient Care Using Interactive Multimedia Reports
The format of radiology reports hasn’t fundamentally changed since Wilhelm Röntgen invented the X-ray 125 years ago. But now that is changing; radiology reporting moves to multimedia that is already part of our everyday lives.
#6 Supporting Clinical Collaboration With Patient Radiology Data
Most complex areas like cancer care require several imaging studies linked to other information types like pathology reports, molecular tests, and genetic profiles to treat the patient. It may be challenging to gather all the relevant patient information from respective departments for treatment selection and monitoring.
#7 Data-Driven Operations To Achieve Real-Time Improvements
Digital engagement has already been helping to educate and remind patients of their appointments. In combination with automated follow-up tracking, this can be a powerful tool to help patients stay on track with their treatment plans.
Conclusion
Radiology workflow is a complex web of separate workflows, so optimizing it can be difficult. No matter whether it’s getting the patient to show up on time, acquiring the images, or providing the best information to the physician, every step of the imaging process can be delayed, variable, or subject to a lack of communication – all of which waste resources, adversely impact patient care, and sometimes result in death.