Business Continuity Planning: Sheer Volume Can Hold Radiology Back.

Business Continuity Planning Relies on Great Communication

Radiologists know there is no relationship more important than that between the radiologist and their technologist. Quality patient care relies on an easy exchange of information from one to the other, and that should be assisted by technology. However, business continuity planning often hits stumbling blocks because of technology.

The day when film was pushed up into the reader and a discussion ensued is long gone. With a variety of different vendors coming out with radiology solutions, the proprietary nature of the industry has produced more headaches than it has solved. Business continuity planning also is impacted quite heavily, especially when a PACS goes down or the servers archiving the medical images require maintenance.

Another issue that radiologists face today is the fact that there is so much remote work going on, such as with teleradiology. It’s often the case that the technologist and the radiologist are in two different locations. This means they probably only discuss images when they do come into contact with each other. Any thought about business continuity planning or image control is left off the table for discussion as the volume of images that need to be discussed take precedence.

Open communication, as experts in radiology have pointed out, can help solve the business continuity planning issue. Technologists and radiologists need a forum that allows them to ask the questions that improve communication and better patient outcomes and patient satisfaction.

There are some business continuity planning issues that can only be solved via the IT personnel, which is a group of people who are often as overworked as the radiologists and technologists. Disaster recovery efforts are often limited, mostly because the information lives on a local server, and if it goes down, so too goes the data. This is an area that can be assisted by cloud-based solutions.

The benefit of a cloud-based vendor taking over the archiving duties is that there is no management issue anymore on the part of the on-site IT personnel. Furthermore, the best offsite vendors are using multiple datacenters, which means if something should occur that knocks one datacenter offline, there are others there to keep the data flowing.

The benefits don’t stop at business continuity planning when it comes to using an offsite vendor for archiving. Take accessibility as an example. Instead of being hampered by proprietary hardware and software, the best offsite vendors are freeing up the data to run on any viewer, including smartphones and tablet computers. All that’s needed is a secure URL and the information is passed along without any delay.

OffSite Image Management, Inc. is a company that offers 360-degree solutions, including offsite management of your images, both DICOM and non-DICOM. Our solutions help radiologists and technologists maintain relationships and improve them through wider availability of images, regardless of whether they are separated by department or by facility. Contact us today and let’s discuss your image management and business continuity needs.