Streamlining the receipt and upload of diagnostic images in a clinic setting
| Autor: | Jean Stanley, David Kon, Farzad D. Buxey, Doug Niedzwiecki, Neil A. Martin, Christine Bartels, Antoinette Anderson |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2011 |
| Předmět: |
Receipt
medicine.medical_specialty Referral Nurse practitioners business.industry Information Storage and Retrieval Troubleshooting Direct cost medicine.disease California Workflow Upload Radiology Information Systems Ambulatory care Health Records Personal Models Organizational Ambulatory Emergency medicine Medicine Database Management Systems Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging Medical emergency business |
| Zdroj: | Journal of the American College of Radiology : JACR. 9(7) |
| ISSN: | 1558-349X |
| Popis: | s e l n g v v c a t m p s INTRODUCTION Neurosurgeons, like most surgeons, require clinical information to perform patient assessments in an ambulatory care clinic setting. Information such as referral notes, radiologic diagnostic studies (digital or film), and clinical reports is critical in determining the type of treatment a patient may require. Technology has advanced from hard films that can be read on any light box to multiple images saved on compact discs (CDs). The advantage of storing images on CDs is their portability and ability to store detailed scans that hard x-ray films cannot provide. At the Department of Neurosurgery, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 70% of newly eferred patients have had radiologic tudies performed at non–UCLA ealth System facilities. Patients ere asked to provide their radiologic tudies before their scheduled apointments, but this practice was inonsistent. Many patients were afraid he CDs would be lost in the mail nd would choose to bring them at he time of their clinic visits. The hallenge for the Department of eurosurgery was managing the inoming referral CDs. As a result, the hysician or nurse practitioner would pen the images in the examination oom or in a screening room at time f the appointment to assess a paient’s condition. In addition to CD management hallenges, every CD had an image iewer, which was proprietary per he manufacturer with a steep earning curve. Compounding the hallenge, the CDs sometimes had ncompatible formats or technical ssues that further affected the hroughput and efficiency of the linic. This led to a negative downtream effect on patient visits and hysician assessments. Patients were required to wait until adiologic studies could be reviewed y physicians. Incompatible formats aused increased delays in clinic time, equiring physicians to focus on learnng and troubleshooting the software nstead of focusing on patient assessent. This often led to both patient nd physician dissatisfaction, as each ubsequent appointment for the day as pushed out, resulting in a long linic day. The delays also contributed o an increase in direct cost in labor for he IT staff members required to be vailable on-site during each clinic to elp troubleshoot the incompatible ormats. The UCLA Department of Neurourgery conducted a Lean project in an ffort to improve the receipt and upoad of outside diagnostic images in a eurosurgical ambulatory clinic. The oals of the project were to reduce the ariability and overall process time to iew externally received images, derease patient wait times in the clinic, nd decrease the total physician time in he clinic. The combination of impleenting a software application and aplying Lean principles to the radiologic tudies viewing process were applied. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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