Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/576097
45 Executive Briefing: for the average community hospital; when aggregated across a large health system, those additional costs become multimil- lion dollar expenses. This scenario leaves the health system with a disjointed, inefficient radiology infrastructure that offers the worst of both worlds: inadequate and inconsistent patient outcomes com- bined with out of control costs. This all occurs in a department that should, by any clear estimation, be highly profitable. Building a New Standard for Radiology In recent years, senior management teams at health systems have recognized that the issues and problems high- lighted throughout this article necessitate the development of a new standard for radiology. This new standard is a strategic imperative for all health systems and hospitals. Healthcare or- ganizations must aim to establish best practice criteria and set measurable performance goals for radiology, and these goals should be overseen at the highest possible level of the organi- zation. Ignoring the challenges and maintaining the status quo will not work; the impact of radiology on the quality and cost of care is simply too high. It has already been shown that, except in very large scale health networks, it is nearly impossible to cost effectively meet or beat baseline standards entirely with in-house staff; it is too expensive to offer the necessary subspecialization capabilities around the clock without impacting quality of care. This means that enabling a standards-based delivery model that offers a full suite of subspecialties can only be accomplished through scale and technology. Because radiology primarily concerns the transmission and interpretation of digital images, it benefits much more from improvements in technology and telecom- munications than other services (such as emergency medicine or anesthesiology) do. When standardized, these technology improvements can be easily scaled to serve all the hospitals and radiology groups within the health system. The benefits that radiology enjoys from technology and standardization make telemedicine platforms a particularly use- ful tool for implementing radiology standards. A telemedicine platform that incorporates "hard-coded" quality programs and offers instantaneous and reliable support from top subspecial- ists allows health systems to increase the quality of patient care while simultaneously reducing cost. Systems with their own ra- diology subspecialists on staff can make them available to the entire system via the platform, leveraging the subspecialists' expertise across all their hospitals. As demonstrated previously, radiology operations typical- ly become more fragmented as the health system grows and each hospital develops its own solution. With a telemedicine infrastructure in place, standardizing processes across hospitals becomes simple, which turns scale from an obstacle into a ben- efit — the more scale a health system has, the better, and more specialized, its services can get. Telemedicine platforms also eliminate the old constraints of geography and time, which both have a negative effect on patient care. When hospital-based radiologists are connected with a system-wide and comprehensive support network of subspecialists, the highest standard of patient care becomes available around the clock. The optimal delivery model incor- porates hundreds of radiologists across every subspecialty — and if only 15 of the largest US radiology practices have more than 65 radiologists, it becomes clear that a cloud-based telemedicine platform is an absolutely necessary part of achiev- ing that goal. To enable a health system to take advantage of the oppor- tunity radiology presents, a telemedicine platform must include five key functionalities: 1. Workflow routing that ensures the right radiologists are reading the right studies every time, taking into account sub- specialty expertise, availability, payer regulations and more; 2. Integrated quality processes (such as double-blind and sec- ondary reviews for high risk cases) into all studies where they are needed; 3. Real-time decision support and live subspecialty consulta- tions at the point of care; 4. Data standardization for reporting, benchmarking, and an- alytics by facility, referring physician, radiologist, modality and patient setting; and 5. Mobile capabilities, including delivery of critical findings for faster communication, access to radiologists for on-demand consultations and access to patient information including final reports, addendums and images. Seizing the Radiology Opportunity The first-order benefits of adopting a consistent radiology standard supported by a comprehensive telemedicine platform are clear and well documented. Robust real-time Quality Assur- ance programs are a key element of a progressive radiology group, with constant learning from mistakes and true contin- uous improvement. Health systems that have institutionalized these standards and implemented real-time Quality Assurance programs have seen 80 percent reductions in error rates and improved turnaround times, as well as the opportunity for real outpatient growth through greater service levels and marketing of renowned subspecialists. Creating and reaping the benefits of standardization is an imperative for health systems that want to take advantage of the tremendous opportunity that radiology presents. In conjunction with a telemedicine platform, rigorous standard- ization and subspecialized radiologist expertise can solve the problems that radiology departments face and help health systems generate significant savings by avoiding unnecessary follow-up exams or intervention, thereby reducing downstream spending. In addition, efficient back office support systems can further streamline this workflow, simultaneously improving both productivity and accuracy. As providers and patients continue to share more risk in the delivery of healthcare, the value of standardized radiol- ogy services will only increase. Health systems that evolve their radiology models to incorporate rigorous standards and advanced telemedicine capabilities will be uniquely positioned to seize the opportunity that the growth of radiology presents. They will also out-compete their peers in both cost and patient care. n Sponsored by: Founded in 2001, Radisphere is the leading provider of radiology enterprise management solutions, serving over 100 hospitals in 28 states. Radisphere has integrated the industry's most stringent performance standards into our care model. We hold our radiology services accountable to diagnostic accuracy, appropriate utilization and service level excellence; we also enable system-wide accountability to these standards through our radiology enterprise manage- ment solution. We use cloud-based workflow management technology with advanced routing logic and 24x7 care management services to connect the hospitals and radiology groups across a system. As a result, health systems across the nation are able to reduce clinical variation across their hospitals and deliver higher quality and lower cost care. Radiology: Hospitals' Opportunity Needs a Quality Standard