Many know Sol Radiology as the Southern California-based practice that, in this decade, grew from three radiologists to 45 in only three years. But other key indicators of Sol’s development might be the pieces from which presently small practices stand to learn the most.
When soaring imaging volumes began to exacerbate workload inequity and drive physician burnout, the leadership team at one prominent radiology practice found the root cause easy to isolate: operational fragmentation.
Radiology is rethinking reporting. Legacy systems are being swapped out in favor of intuitive, standardized, AI-powered tools. Greater automation is driving quantifiable improvements into both clinical outcomes and business metrics. Stated another way, radiology reporting is having a moment.
A referring physician orders an MRI of the lumbar spine and hits send. That order lands at three, sometimes four, outpatient imaging centers simultaneously. The center that contacts the patient first books the appointment. The rest miss out on the revenue.
3D surface modeling and virtual surgical planning are expanding radiology’s contribution to multidisciplinary teams. Together, AI-driven interpretation and 3D-enabled clinical collaboration represent two distinct, complementary forces shaping the next decade of radiology.
CT angiography (CTA) represents a tremendous leap forward in diagnosticimaging. It, together with magnetic resonance angiography, isincreasingly becoming the diagnostic imaging solution of choice.Clinically relevant and workflow efficient results, however, hinge onsophisticated software as well as a state-of-the-art CT scanningsolution.
Two years ago, St. Luke’s Hospital and Health Network in Bethlehem, Pa., was among the first adopters of the GECentricity PACS and Centricity AW Suite 2.0, and since then it has realsignificant benefits in terms of convenience, flexibility, efficiencyand workflow.
Advanced visualization has become an essential technology not only inradiology but across the enterprise. While radiology is the hub of 3Doperations, users across the enterprise need to access and view 3Dreconstructions. Critical users include surgeons, orthopedicspecialists and cardiologists.
Over the last decade, GE Healthcare’s Advantage Workstation (AW) hasproven its utility as a multi-modality post-processing powerhorse. GEextends the value of the workstation with a comprehensive softwareportfolio to the meet the needs of multiple modalities.
A solid business continuity plan provides the healthcare organizationwith the redundancy and infrastructure necessary to recover data if aprimary system or data center is compromised or destroyed.
Experience demonstrates that there aredramatic differences in workflow, efficiency, and ease of use amongdisplay systems and vendors. The same credo holds true for thedeployment process.
The right diplays can boost reading efficiency and workflow, which, in turn, aids turnaround time and workflow and increases revenue. Making the right display choice hinges on understanding the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between systems and vendors.
