Positive signs that diagnostic centers should invest in Teleradiology

In the present scenario, there is a lot of silent competition going on among the owners of diagnostic centers. It is not easy to achieve and manage a constantly high and good patient footfall. 

In a well-established diagnostic center, every bit is important, from the highly advanced equipment to the reception desk each part needs to be managed carefully. A lot of money is required to maintain it all, to manage all of these financial and operational challenges teleradiology can only be a constant support that can help the owners of these diagnostic centers to thrive effortlessly. 

The volume of scans that need reporting usually outnumbers the radiologists available who can report them which in turn delays the reports and poses a bad impression for the center. 

Teleradiology is the latest trend in the field of radiology benefitting right from an individual radiologist to the hospital. A diagnostic center must acquire this technology to stand strong and efficient in the market.

Advantages of acquiring teleradiology for diagnostic centers

Availability of radiologists 24/7: It is very expensive to have a radiologist available all the time in a diagnostic center. Whereas with teleradiology any center can afford to have radiologist support available 24/7. This is the most important advantage of teleradiology since it is the first thing needed for the proper functioning of a diagnostic center to have a radiologist 24/7.

Turnaround time: With teleradiology, the turnaround time can be improved at an amazing rate. Sometimes due to high volumes, there is an unnecessary delay in reporting which can delay the treatment for a patient. In such cases, patients/clients avoid visiting such diagnostic centers where reporting takes time. Thus to wait for an onsite radiologist to report all the cases the scan can be outsourced to a teleradiology center and can have a quick turnaround time. As and how the turnaround time decreases it reflects on the diagnostic center.

Nighthawks: These are the offsite radiologist who can work for a diagnostic center for odd times such as night, weekends, or any other holidays. If there is any emergency in the night and there is no radiologist available then in such situations these nighthawks can help the physicians in treating any emergency by reporting the scans immediately. Thus a diagnostic center that can provide such services would stand on top of the list of choices for physicians.

Expanding business: The owners of the centers who have enough means to expand their business with a chain of new diagnostic centers but have a limited number of radiologists can use this technology very nicely. Using teleradiology can enable a single radiologist to report for multiple centers, this would help the center to have more spots and also the radiologist who can save his time and energy from going from one place to other and can work rather more efficiently.

Prevents burnout of onsite radiologists: At times there are situations where due to high volumes of scans the onsite radiologist may get exhausted and feel overworked leading to the burnout of the radiologist, who in turn makes more mistakes, and the efficacy gets hampered. Teleradiology can be a very helpful solution, it can allow the diagnostic center to outsource its radiology reporting to a teleradiology center. This would save the efficiency of the onsite radiologist and would prevent them from making mistakes. All this would eventually make a good name for a diagnostic center.

Reporting from all subspeciality radiologists: A diagnostic center gets scans of all types for all different imaging modalities, a single radiologist can’t have expertise in all forms such as CT, MRI, PET/SPECT, USG, etc. Also, there is subspeciality radiologist for fields such as neuroradiologist, pediatric radiologist, a musculoskeletal radiologist who have a different approach for diagnosis with the help of teleradiology the diagnostic center can outsource the scan to a teleradiology center and can get reporting from a subspeciality radiologist as per need. This is more important when any rare disease is encountered.

Conlcusion

These are a few of the well-known advantages of teleradiology which can help a diagnostic center to improve its practice. Apart from this there are many more advantages such as well documentation of cases, managing medico-legal matters easily due to well documentation, etc.

Thus a diagnostic center should invest in teleradiology to achieve great change and success in its practice.