Radiology exams are typically categorized as Stroke Cases, STAT cases, Trauma cases, Emergency Radiology, Inpatient, Outpatient and ICU cases etc. A radiologist’s workflow dashboard therefore must be organized in a manner that s/he has access to all vital information with the click of a button. But, it is easier said than done!
With increased accessibility and affordability of imaging modality machines and also due to incessant endeavors of modality manufacturers and PACS companies to provide precise imaging solution, there has been a quantum jump in the number of exams to be read. Further, the advent and availability of newer modality machines has also created the need for subspecialists readings. A radiologist dashboard is now no less than a cross-word puzzle. What is most affected are the radiologist’s productivity, quality of work, communication between different stakeholders and the overall viability of running an imaging facility.
To overcome these challenges, companies are creating workflow orchestrators. Workflow Orchestrator is a mechanism for automatically matching imaging scans with a radiologist profile in the radiologist service provider environment. So, instead of radiologists spending their precious time figuring out which scan to read, the scans look for a perfect radiologist to read them. Workflow Orchestrator further mines for exams in terms of priority or SLA (service level agreement), right sub-specialty and the best relationships and accordingly populates them in the worklist of the relevant radiologists for their appropriate response.
RIS-PACS with Workflow Orchestration lends itself in enhancing productivity, quality and communication. With the implementation of intelligent tools such as Workflow Orchestration, the exams are exposed to a broader audience as time goes by. To begin with, the exams are exposed to the most suited radiologists, ones that have the best expertise and the best relationship to read that exam.
The Workflow Orchestrator also ensures that all available subspecialists are taken into the fold if a particular exam is not read or taken up quickly enough. The orchestrator delivers incalculable augmentation where quality KPI is concerned. The software also organizes exams not just by clinical but also by business priorities. The most crucial exams can be seen on top followed by the emergency and STAT exams, right after that comes inpatient exams, and then outpatient exams. Each exam is tagged by the intelligent software by the SLA so the time remaining to read each exam can be seen easily.
The productivity of the radiologists can be seen clearly from the personal radiologist dashboard. Apart from other features, there is also a break glass mechanism so that if a radiologist chooses to read out of order, the system will ask for a reason to do so. With integrated communication tools such as chat or instant messaging and more, the orchestrator’s software allows radiologists and referring physicians to easily share context of exams with each other and even ask for a specific exam to be reviewed. The workflow orchestrator lets radiologists have the right tools to manage inaccurate exams and enhance productivity.
The Workflow Orchestrator helps direct imaging exams first to suitable clinical subspecialists, and then it makes sure that the exams are made available to other radiologists as needed to satisfy desired turnaround times. Exams also can be allocated to specific radiologists according to a referring physician’s preference and existing affiliations with hospitals or healthcare facilities. The platform’s workload balancing function can optimize reporting times.
- It takes care of enhanced productivity by aligning demand with supply. Dynamic assignment automatically accelerates and assigns studies to the most appropriate, available radiologists. There is better communication through associated tools and automated notifications.
- With a universal worklist, the orchestrator incorporates quality and interpretations tasks in one place. Efficiency is improved by contributing to quicker turnaround times and reduced length of stay.
When a study was conducted to see the impact of RADSpa’s Workflow Orchestrator feature, the results were overwhelmingly positive.
- Almost 85% of the radiologists agreed that RADSpa’s Workflow Orchestrator helped them to reduce the TATs and increase productivity.
- Statistical analysis of 180 days of logs before and after automation indicated 35% improvement in overall TAT for emergency cases.
- Radiologist productivity per case improved by 25% as every case is auto-validated for images prior it is assigned.
- Exam Coordinators or the Assigners reported a massive 98% reduction in effort which used to go in manually eliminating errors, and thereby more time in hand for handling greater workloads.
Radiology Workflow Automation has positively impacted timely patient care specifically in Reporting Emergency cases and thereby saving lives.
- Manual errors and allocation time is reduced by 98%, TAT is improved 35% and RAD’s productivity by 25%.
- Zero error in case assignment to radiologists by the coordinators (assigners).
- Radiologists receiving advance alert regarding their work list.
- Notification to assigners regarding un-attended cases. This helped assigners to follow-up with the respective Radiologists or re-assign them to equivalent Radiologists.
This value-based care has helped radiologists achieve more and do much more. This increased cooperation between healthcare providers as well as professionals benefits all participants in the care continuum. Workflow Orchestrator is therefore a great productivity and quality boosting tool and promises to be an excellent tool for collaboration and communication.
