Today every forward-thinking radiology practice realizes that, in these times of falling reimbursement, rising regulatory oversight and cascading calls for transparency, it’s not enough to be great at what you do.

When is the right time to add a vendor-neutral archive (VNA)? For DCH Health System, a Tuscaloosa-based hospital enterprise serving West Alabama, the decision coincided with an ambitious expansion of the cardiology department of its flagship hospital, 600-bed DCH Regional Medical Center.

Right now, just about anyone with a large enough line of credit can purchase a new, state-of-the-art MR or CT scanner. Going forward, what will separate the highly successful radiology practices from those muddling through—or hanging on for dear life—is not impressive equipment.

Through both organic growth and merger-and-acquisition activity, the New Brunswick, NJ-based mega-practice University Radiology has increased in size from 61 to 96 radiologists in just six years. The task of technologically knitting all practice and service sites together into one integrated whole has fallen to practice CIO Alberto Goldszal, PhD.

Michael Trambert, MD, had long suspected the workflow reporting automation made possible by the tightly integrated PACS/RIS/VR solution used by the Santa Barbara Radiology Medical Group (SBRMC) was saving him about an hour each day. A two-pronged study1 presented at the recent meeting of the RSNA confirmed that the conjectured efficiencies were even greater than he thought—adding up to 75 minutes per day.

Databases, including that of a RIS, are fine for managing simple, linear workflows: Think scheduling, completing and interpreting exams. If you add in a step that makes things just a bit more complex—even something as seemingly basic as checking if the patient is in hospital or at home and needs an appointment reminder—then the works can quickly gum up.

The ubiquity of mobile computing across society and throughout healthcare has sharply raised expectations around the speed of communications. Where once referring physicians anticipated waits of several days to receive radiology reports, whether by courier, fax or sometimes even snail mail, they now bristle at lag times measured in hours or even minutes. Increasingly, patients want the same for themselves.

When Dane’lle Southern was approached by Steinberg Diagnostic Medical Imaging Centers’ (SDMI) CIO to take on the role of PACS administrator for the company, she initially declined, and remembers thinking she couldn’t possibly be a good fit for the position.