Health information technology has proven itself to be instrumental in the advancement of the health care industry, allowing physicians to better track and monitor patients’ progress. Specifically, PACS systems have been an integral aspect of increasing the value of radiologists, according to experts at the annual meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine.
Radiology is one of the pioneers for health IT, leading to improvements in the coordination of care across disparate clinical settings. Referring physicians could receive valuable insight from the imaging experts, while radiologists could bolster their roles within health care by lending their expertise to the development of care strategies. Diagnostic Imaging reported that today, much of the focus on improving these systems lies in promoting interoperability among products, such as electronic medical records.
The shift to interoperable enterprise IT has been fueled by an increased desire from users outside of radiology to store and recall their images in PACS. Additionally, new regulations and the eventual decline in reimbursements from the federal government have contributed to the growth of new technologies in health care.
Much of the trick rests in converging IT and radiology to work together in improving each others’ efforts. The larger scope of coordinating and extending care relies on collaborative minds, and developers at Johns Hopkins may have come up with the solution.
Exercising mobility
According to AuntMinnie.com, a team from the renowned hospital unveiled an iPad application at SIIM 2014 that hopes to add upon the improvements previously developed by the advent of PACS systems. In order to bolster interaction between radiologists and referring physicians, the researchers promise that the solution will serve to recapture the value of face-to-face consultations in diagnostic radiology.
Presented by Paras Khandheria, M.D., of Johns Hopkins Hospital, the application is called Radiologists Engaging and Collaborating in Healthcare, or REACH. The user interface combines a Web-based PACS viewer with videoconferencing and mobile access to radiology reports. It allows radiologists and doctors to consult in real-time via their tablets, breaking down departmental silos that impact the continuum of care.
Traditionally, PACS solutions granted referring physicians remote access to images and reports to deliver exam results. However, this has shown to cause a decline in personal consultations among the providers as a result of enterprise-wide PACS. Ultimately, this might cause problems in clarity, as radiologists are not able to make specific remarks while doctors review the findings.
Preventing further breakdowns
To combat this issue, REACH underscores the importance of personal consultations by highlighting the benefits of face-to-face meetings among the clinical stakeholders.
“The radiologist [gains] a better ability to apply clinical findings to the study, and the clinician [can grasp] the imaging abnormalities with a deeper understanding, and can understand the implications for patient management and [determine] if other workup is indicated,” Khandheria said, quoted by AuntMinnie.com.
REACH supports the sharing of PACS sessions with doctors, allowing any changes made on one viewer to appear on the other. This permits both providers to track the same areas where further clarification is needed. The basis of the application is that visual-rich conversation with telecommunication is superior to phone-based conversations regarding clinical care, and the videoconferencing enhances collaborations.
In theory, radiologists can activate the REACH app when they’re available for consultations and continue their daily workload. Whenever doctors have inquiries regarding medical imaging data, they simply load the study and find an available radiologist to contact via the application. Upon receiving the request, the imaging expert can either accept or decline the consultation invitation, with an option of sending a message back to the clinician.
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Ronny Bachrach
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