From the August 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
To improve performance and significantly accelerate the imaging cycle it is a better practice to measure each segment of the process. The number of identifiable segments will vary by institution, but at a minimum radiology should be able to separately analyze and report on the interval from order entry to scan completion, differentiating the front end workflow from the actual time required to read and dictate the case. By looking at the whole imaging cycle start-to-finish, hospitals can identify and correct problems with equipment capacity or staffing levels that slow the availability of results to the ED.
It is important that radiology departments also evaluate how turnaround time differs by location of service, using analytics to highlight opportunities to shorten inpatient length of stay. Today, it is standard to look at report turnaround time for the various locations of service. Tomorrow, we need to go a step farther, teasing out our performance on the specific studies required for discharge and the percentage that are ordered within four hours of discharge. Only by drilling down to that level can we definitively understand how radiology is supporting or hindering the larger efficiency goals in the hospital.
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As the pressure to demonstrate value in health care becomes more intense, the need for robust analytics will only increase. Radiology groups have a unique opportunity to lead the conversation on analytics because so many aspects of their work can be easily measured and reduced to metrics. That’s just the nature of our highly digital specialty. It is also foreseeable that the greater availability of data will strengthen the hand of radiology groups, not weaken it. The rapid expansion of analytics is good for both hospitals and radiology groups. Both groups benefit from this because it means that future discussions on performance will not be based on opinions, but rather they will be derived from hard evidence.
About the author: Dr. Strong is Chief Medical Officer of vRad, a global telemedicine company and the nation’s largest radiology practice with over 450 physicians.
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