The 28th annual meeting and exposition of the American Healthcare Radiology Administrators is set open in Nashville next month, running from Aug. 6 through 10, so we decided to turn our Medical Imaging venue over to management and look at various ways radiology departments, physicians and other clinicians can efficiently use their available resources and the most precious of all commodities — time.
How do you make a department perform at peak ability? Associate editor Marie Marchese covers a wide range of variables — from staffing to equipment purchase decisions to PACS — in her page 44 article on managing a radiology department.
One thing is for sure. All radiographic facilities — whether they are in small private offices or large, research-oriented, university-affiliated hospitals — have similar concerns. It’s the magnitude that changes with the size of the institution.
The Web — and its potential benefits for healthcare — is on everybody’s mind these days. Radiology’s use of the medium is still behind that of non-healthcare industries. Sufficient bandwidth and reliable performance are two reasons why. Interest is growing, but when you look at definitive numbers on how many radiologists actively use the Internet to store, retrieve and transmit images, the percentages remain in single-digit territory.
One way to determine the efficiency of a department is to quantify performance. While radiology has been behind the curve in outcomes research, department administrators are beginning to recognize the importance of these studies. In many other clinical areas they have been shown to improve patient outcomes — and the bottom line.
For example, on page 52 is a one-on-one interview with Jeffrey G. Jarvik, M.D., associate professor of radiology, neurological surgery and health services at the University of Washington and an active proponent of outcomes research. Jarvik is running a randomized trial comparing MRI procedures with X-rays to diagnose people suffering from lower back pain. He’s wants to see if rapid MRI exams — ones that can be performed in less than three minutes — can help physicians make better therapeutic decisions and reduce the need for additional tests down the road. If so, rapid MR may be the more cost-effective than single-plane radiographs in the long run.
To wrap up the special section, on page 49 MI offers a sneak peek at some AHRA sessions that may be of particular interest to readers heading for Opryland.
An issue of MI would not be complete without a technology update, and this month we look at up-and-coming applications for 3D MRI, CT and ultrasound that are improving diagnostic accuracy and saving lives. See all the angles on page 56.
As always, we hope you’ll find a few novel ideas between our covers to help you improve the quality of care in your department — or your own performance — or at least get a discussion started on how some of these approaches may be applied to your operation — be it large or small.
Mary C. Tierney
Editor
[email protected]
