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.

Change is coming to radiology in ways the profession could not have anticipated in a pre-Affordable Care Act world. The forces driving the change are many and varied—economic, regulatory, technology-enabled—but one common denominator has emerged as the “cardiopulmonary system” of the transformation: hospitals under intense pressure to perform in order to survive.

As senior vice president of Integrated Radiology Partners, (IRP) and also president of the Radiology Business Management Association, Keith Chew is a well-respected leader in our industry. He recently spent time with RadAnalytics to talk about his new role with IRP, the importance of applying analytics in radiology, and share his thoughts on radiology’s outlook for 2015.