In imaging services, “getting it right” is of utmost importance when it comes to selecting the appropriate equipment, administering the correct radiation dose and delivering excellent patient care. Getting it right also is an imperative where staffing is concerned.

Despite the considerable progress that’s been made to bridge the gap between IT and radiology, in part through the development of sophisticated IT-based radiology practice solutions, a considerable understanding gap remains between those who implement and support solutions and those who use them.  According to results from a recent survey conducted by Adam H. Kaye, MD, MBA, of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the Society of Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM), individuals from IT and radiology staff working in the same facility feel like fish out of water when asked about the specific day-to-day workflows and decision-making processes of the other group. After completing a survey and participating in a shadowing experiment, the two groups gained alignment, achieved only because they were able to experience and understand the needs of the other group and recognize the importance of communication. 

The seamless interface of information systems within an enterprise is the Holy Grail in health systems for good reason: Tight integrations can yield big benefits. After replacing its PACS and tightly interfacing the new system with its electronic medical record (EMR), Springfield, Mass.-based Baystate Health is reaping the benefits of streamlined workflow and improved patient care across its four hospitals, more than 10,000 employees, cancer center and heart and vascular center. 

When it comes to electronic communications for radiology, it’s all in the workflow, says Andrew Wells, MD, a radiologist with Hendersonville Radiological Consultants, an eight-partner practice that covers three hospitals in western North Carolina.

When Schuylkill Health in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, started evaluating PACS to replace an existing system, a radiology information system (RIS) was not on the shopping list. The radiology department that served two hospitals and two specialty imaging centers used a hospital information system that had provided basic RIS functionality.

Marcus J. Hampers, MD, MBA, is on the clinical staff in the emergency department of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, N.H., and also on the teaching staff at the affiliated Geisel School of Medicine, but he is not practicing much emergency medicine these days. Instead, he is leading the rollout of a network of 10 urgent care centers in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, two of which opened in June, with two more scheduled to open this month.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) recently announced that healthcare spending costs rose 9.9 percent in the first quarter of 2014, which was the largest quarterly increase in more than 30 years. The continued rise in healthcare spending costs has a direct effect on the entire United States population, but most directly effects consumers via overall higher healthcare costs including higher insurance premiums. 

In an environment where radiologists are consistently being asked to do more with less, a simple increase in production is no longer a viable remedy to a problem. Practice managers and physician owners need to work smarter, instead of just harder. Using business intelligence data for predictive analytics, they are beginning to run their practices more efficiently, but also more effectively, challenging the status quo and using data to affect change.