On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina—the deadliest storm of its kind in U.S. history—made its final landfall near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi with a 28-foot storm surge and a storm tide of more than 30 feet deep. Like 80 percent of New Orleans, many neighboring parishes, and a multitude of other coastal towns along the Gulf of Mexico, Bay St. Louis was devastated by the hurricane.

Blue Mountain Health System may not have been early to the digital revolution when it implemented its first RIS/PACS in 2010, but it has moved further than many larger health systems in the intervening four years.Since implementation, the two-hospital community health system has dramatically reduced turnaround time, increased technologist productivity and improved patient satisfaction and safety. Much of that improvement can be attributed to Blue Mountain’s crowning achievement: It has achieved a 100% paperless workflow in the radiology department.

To Cory Cino, the history of Wyoming County Community Health System in Western New York divides neatly between “before RIS” and “everything since.”The PACS administrator vividly recalls his radiology department doing patient scheduling and tracking on sheets of loose-leaf paper in three-ring binders and reporting via cassette-tape transcriptions on a homegrown database. Then there was perhaps the most cumbersome practice of all: storing pretty much everything the department produced—reports, tapes and, prior to PACS, films—wherever an untaken spot could be found…including on the roof.

The placard project at Spectrum Health Systems is a unique methodology developed by George Vallillee, manager of Radiology Information Solutions, to improve the fidelity of the patient experience during a planned downtime or system disruption.  The project was proposed and initiated by Vallillee, and largely driven by teams whose input was mainly intellectual collateral, drawn from daily workflows, and drawn from the radiology system used throughout Spectrum. Since the rollout of the program, it has been tested and updated regularly to make further improvements in efficiency. Deemed a success by health system executives, the placard program has become a permanent part of Spectrum Health Systems communication plan. 

The continuity of business is vital in any setting but even more so in hospitals when patient encounters and care delivery may be interrupted. Considering the importance of the work that is carried out in healthcare facilities, developing continuity of business plans at all points of patient care is completely essential.

Many radiology groups have already committed to meaningful use (MU) of health IT to reap the financial benefits of utilizing electronic health records, but a high percentage remain on the sidelines. Some of the reluctance could be attributed to the belief that the cost will outweigh the benefit, but that disregards the fact that referring physicians who have attested will need to connect with specialty providers for phase 2 in order to continue complying with the program.

When Atlanta-based The Radiology Group was founded in 2006, it looked like a traditional private radiology practice, albeit a family affair. Anand Lalaji, MD, a musculoskeletal radiologist, his wife Tejal Lalaji, MD (a neuroradiologist and breast imager) and his father-in-law Mahendra Patel, MD, (a body imager) grew the practice over the subsequent three years into a thriving enterprise with multiple hospital and imaging center clients in Northeast Georgia. 

Contrary to the recent technical reimbursement cuts this year, which have negatively impacted diagnostic imaging operators, professional reimbursement for the same CPT codes have experienced a stable to slight decline; although, in some instances there was an increase. Modalities such as Computed Tomography (“CT”) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (“MRI”) experienced technical reimbursement declines between 1 percent and 45 percent. For many freestanding imaging operators relying heavily on governmental payors, without an increase in volume and/or expense reductions, the technical reimbursement declines directly impact the operating earnings of the business.