Telemedicine is the application of information technology and telecommunications networks for the purpose of medical diagnosis and therapy from remote locations. A host of recent technology innovations have made it possible for telemedicine to expand its reach across every medical speciality– its usage in radiology is called “Teleradiology.”
Radiology incorporates the diverse methods used in medical science to capture images of the internal body structure and function (eg. x-rays, MRIs, ultrasounds), to assist in the process of medical diagnosis or treatment.
Teleradiology is the capability to acquire these medical images in one location and facilitate their transmission over a range so that they can be viewed and interpreted for diagnostic or consultative purposes by a radiologist.
This practice is becoming widely adopted by hospitals, urgent care clinics, and diagnostic imaging centers. The factor responsible for its rapidly growing implementation is due to the fact that it addresses the inadequacy of appropriately skilled personnel to provide radiological analysis and the lack of practitioners of this specialty.
The process of teleradiology, in essence, is based on a fundamental triad; an image sending station, a transmission network, and a image retrieval station that should have a high-quality display screen. Additional more recent technology innovations include the incorporation of cloud for redundancy and cost reduction, mobile technologies for greater access and sophisticated teleradiology workflow that enhances radiologist productivity, provide performance metrics and track quality. .
Teleradiology improves client care by enabling radiologists to supply their expertise without necessarily being at the same location as the patient. This is especially essential when radiologist subspecialists (e.g. MRI radiologists, pediatric radiologists, neuro-radiologists) are required, because these specialists are few in number and typically located in metropolitan cities. Teleradiology therefore enhances the quality of radiology reporting by bringing the images of a patient in a small town to the most specialized radiologist who is best qualified to interpret the particular radiologic scan..
On the other hand, smaller sized healthcare facilities in rural areas might use only one radiologist or none at all. In such situations, it is virtually impossible for the radiologist to be available 24 x7 x 365. Having the support of a teleradiology reporting service can both improve the quality of life of the solo radiologist as well as improve the quality of care that might be potentially diminished by radiologist overwork..
Teleradiology can be a means through which physicians can collaborate when they are not in direct contact. For example an emergency doctor at a rural urgent care center can gain obtain a radiology consultation from a specialist urban radiologist and discuss the case telephonically while simultaneously viewing his or her patient’s images. (e.g. they are in remote places). This can be extremely valuable from the perspective of enhancing patient care and improving outcomes.
Using the services of outsourcing companies or radiology groups to supply and maintain the needed radiology coverage, smaller medical facilities are able to make better usage of their own on-site specialists and enable them to maintain their regular working hours.
This can likewise be economical for the medical facility as the outsourcing institution need only spend based on utilization, and is spared the significant fixed cost of having a radiologist on site at a small institution where they may not be fully utilized . The arrangement of these expert services to manage inpatients at small hospitals without experts on site has been revealed to be a reliable way of providing high quality care that would otherwise be unavailable.
In summary, the benefits of teleradiology are related to affording access to specialist radiologist expertise where or when none exists, to the appropriate utilization of radiologist time and energy, and to the overall enhancement of patient care, while at the same time reducing healthcare costs!
The technologies today are mature and evolved, and the outsourced model wherein images are routed to a teleradiology reporting service is an established and tested one which affords significant value, especially to small rural and community hospitals. Startup costs, as well as running costs, are reasonable and affordable and the process is smooth and streamlined.
Sounds like a pretty compelling value proposition? Try it and find out for yourself!!.
