The Only Thing More Interesting Than Where CIVIE Came From Is Where It Wants to Take Radiology Next
Dhruv Chopra started his career in radiology as a courier for a small practice. His duties included shuttling imaging orders, CDs and radiology reports between the practice, referrers and client imaging centers. He learned to endure city traffic jams like a street-hardened cabbie. Today he’s chief executive officer of a thriving company delivering high-tech solutions to radiology practices of all sizes.
How did he get to his lofty station from such humble beginnings? The question intrigued Radiology Business, so we pressed for details.
“When I first graduated with an MBA and an affinity for information technology, I found myself overqualified for a lot of jobs that I would have been willing to take,” Chopra explains. “But I was underqualified for the kind of work I really wanted to do. I lacked the hands-on experience.”
The road he chose to obtain that experience eventually led him to co-found CIVIE.
That’s the radiology technology company built on the tech stack and customer base formerly maintained by Collaborative Imaging. In fact, CIVIE is named after one of Collaborative’s best-loved products—its digital scheduling toolkit. (There’s more on that, and on Collaborative Imaging’s roots in radiological innovation, here.)
CIVIE’s story tracks closely with Chopra’s own, so here’s a bit more on that courier gig.
“My cousin, a radiologist with a practice in Houston, hired me to be their delivery guy,” Chopra recalls. “At first it was just work to tide me over until I landed my dream job. But before long the interactions I had showed me radiology was riddled with avoidable inefficiencies and process errors.”
All roads led to radiology technology
Tech enthusiast that he already was, Chopra researched the available digital tools that could help address those kinds of shortcomings within his cousin’s practice. While assessing the field, he recognized the market was ripe for software solutions that had not been developed. Others could help but, by his lights, needed serious refinement.
“I’ve always loved to innovate, so the pieces kind of fell in place for me after that,” he says. The formative jobs he had before joining Collaborative Imaging in 2018 and then co-founding CIVIE in 2025 included operations VP positions with Zotec Partners, Emphysis Medical Management and Advanced Diagnostics Healthcare System.
“All those jobs helped me grow my expertise in revenue cycle management and other operational systems critical to radiology practices in the value-based care era.”
Tapping that experience base, Chopra set out to lead CIVIE in creating or refining software based on radiologists’ real-world needs.
“Looking back,” he reflects, “it really wasn’t that long a road from medical imaging courier to radiology technology CEO.”
This brings him to the present day and CIVIE’s future outlook.
About that name change
Collaborative Imaging rang in 2025 by refreshing its identity with the name change to CIVIE in January. It made the move when a private equity firm, WindRose Health Investors, acquired Collaborative’s technology platform.
“We’ve made it our mission to deliver a complete ecosystem of AI-powered, purpose-built software products to radiology operations that could really use them. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Dhruv Chopra, CIVIE CEO
“We feel basing the new name on a key offering in our product line fits better with our drive to equip radiology operations with tech-based answers to their most pressing problems,” Chopra tells Radiology Business. “Today, of course, those problems involve everything from slow and incomplete cash flows to painful radiologist shortages to overwhelming case volumes.”
He adds that WindRose’s backing will be instrumental as CIVIE translates its stated mission into strategic action. And what is its mission?
“Delivering a complete ecosystem of AI-powered, purpose-built software products to radiology operations that could really use them,” Chopra replies. “And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Product family united by complementarity
Chopra puts meat on the bone of that claim by pointing to quantified results achieved by CIVIE clients. He shares examples with the full product line chunked up under six overlapping yet distinct categories, as follows.
- AI-powered workflows: Universal worklist, RCM, PACS, VNA, RIS and speech-to-text. Published CIVIE materials show the company’s clients using this combination of technologies have realized a 60% reduction in operational expenses and a 24% bump in average revenues.
- Business intelligence: Universal worklist, PACS and speech-to-text. Average CIVIE client gains here include a 40% improvement in radiologist productivity and a 70% increase in job satisfaction.
- Patient experience: RCM and RIS. Some 92% of clients’ patients use portals for all interactions, and almost all—98%—say they’re satisfied with radiology practices using these CIVIE tools.
- Data transparency: Universal worklist, RCM, PACS, RIS, VNA and speech-to-text. CIVIE clients using one or more of the technologies in this category report a 22 increase in charge capture and a 30% reduction in interoperability costs, company materials state.
- Interoperability and integrations: Universal worklist, RCM, PACS, RIS, VNA and speech-to-text. The published materials show 98% of patients have a master patient index while a full 100% of clients report successful normalization of data from disparate systems.
- RadPod, a division of CIVIE: RadPod is the next-generation, Uber-like, on-demand platform that connects hospitals and facilities with a dynamic network of top-tier radiologists, available 24/7. RadPod delivers high-quality diagnostic imaging with unmatched speed, transparency and consistency—helping to elevate patient care while reducing operational friction, Chopra explains. The result is that radiologists are no longer bound by outdated systems, rigid employment models or undervalued work.
A technology company is only as good as its technology people
CIVIE’s commitment to producing and delivering a complete digital ecosystem for radiology practices may be nowhere more apparent than in its aggressive staffing. The company’s technology team consists of around 250 software engineers, 80 data scientists and 20 AI specialists.
“We’re a technology company,” Chopra emphasizes. “Our people are technology people with strong service skills. And we have a lot of them.”
He also stresses the criticality of CIVIE’s ownership of every technology it uses. “This is why we call our family of products a true digital ecosystem,” he reiterates. “The pieces all work together to make for a seamless experience for the radiologist.”
To hear Chopra tell it, if the company’s approach to hiring and retaining talent is vigorous, its take on AI is nothing less than forceful. And its strategy for the technology didn’t come from out of the blue.
“They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that’s been true for CIVIE as well as our clients,” he says. “At a time when reimbursements are going down while costs and volumes are going up, AI is soon to be indispensable to radiology. That will go double for independent practices and imaging centers that want to maintain their autonomy.”
AI all day, every day
The company’s vision is for AI to become ubiquitous across radiology, Chopra says, adding that this viewpoint goes far in explaining its attraction to WindRose Health Investors. “Their resources are going to be instrumental,” he says, “in advancing our drive to innovate with radiological AI.”
CIVIE will use an “all-in-one” endpoint as its ultimate goal for AI, he says. This means designing AI agents that shepherd patients through imaging-inclusive episodes of care from the first call for an appointment to the final outcome.
“Right now radiology has all these AI things out there, all these bits and pieces,” he says. “How can we let AI connect everything together? How can we use it to solve actual problems? How can we leverage its strengths to deliver highly desirable services?”
What he has in mind, it’s clear, is agentic AI that sets every episode of care in motion—and sees everything through—with just one click to start the process.
“We’re working on this internally,” he shares. “It’s not ready for primetime yet. Until we reach that point, and even after, our radiologist partners know that we aren’t taking our eye off the ball. We’re still all about supplying radiology-specific software that makes their workflows easier and faster—and makes their reads of better quality—than ever before.”
To learn more about CIVIE’s AI-integrated digital ecosystem, click here.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.