The Journal of the American College of Radiology released a report recently that sheds some light on an issue that many radiology professionals are facing today regarding image transmission, clinical decision support and computerized physician order entry systems. Researchers have discovered that clinical decision support (CDS) at the point of care level provides improvements in advanced imaging orders, particularly with primary care physicians.
Most radiologists and other healthcare providers are aware that CDS is effective for the outpatient procedure process because it helps to reduce the amount of unnecessary imaging, but researchers wanted to look into how CDS could help manage inpatient procedures.
Taking a yearlong assessment of large and small hospitals, researchers studied how these health systems used CDS pull-down menus to order various imaging procedures and others, such as nuclear medicine. They also looked into how the various orders applied to criteria established by the American College of Radiology, rating the outcomes with an “appropriateness” score.
Researchers found not much difference regarding the number of advanced impatient imaging orders between the first six months of the study, when they looked at orders processed through CDS pull-down menus only, and the second six months when they were also provided with ACR AC scores. One of the people involved in the study commented that they were surprised that nearly three-quarters of the requests did not match existing appropriate criteria.
However, the upside of the study reveals that during the second half of the study when physicians were also provided with ACR AC scores for their orders, appropriateness scores improved. For example, the effect of CDS went from an appropriate percent of 76 percent in the first six months to 81.7 percent in the second six months; uncertain percentages dropped from 19.2 to 14.2 percent; and inappropriate percentages when from 4.8 down to 4.1 percent.
Bringing new technologies into the area of radiology should continue to improve, especially as vendors use offsite methods to archive and share imaging. Instead of being hampered by proprietary solutions, more healthcare providers are insisting on solutions that utilize vendor neutral archiving processes.
The focus on upgrading PACS and/or replacing them has put VNA processes at center stage when it comes to image transmission. Most physicians may not know about the foundation behind the systems that get them the images they need to quickly and efficiently diagnose their patients, but IT personnel are focused on maintaining highly functional solutions that are built around VNA processes to provide physicians and specialists with the records they require. Furthermore, there is also a focus on disaster recovery so that data will always be available, regardless of what disasters are occurring in the immediate area.
Choosing an offsite solution is what many rural providers have grown accustomed to, not only because of their limitations with budgets and staff, but because it’s a quality image transmission solution. OffSite Image Management, Inc., has built up VNA processes that have already benefited many rural providers. For more information, contact us today.