Resource
Efficiency
Unmanaged Resources Can Cost Time and Money
Managing budgets while providing quality care can be a complicated balancing act. Even if you can identify the challenges, finding the right strategies to address them may not be readily apparent.
How well do you manage resources in your imaging operation?
At South Jersey Radiology Associates (SJRA) automatic capture of contrast dose details essentially eliminated dictation errors that previously affected approximately 50% of CT reports. By eliminating the discrepancies in contrast details that required further investigation and correction, Radimetrics® together with our point of care applications** helps SJRA save radiologist dictation time, increase accuracy and improve billing cycle time.*†1
Resource Efficiency Improves Productivity, Workflow, and the Bottom Line
You can control costs and deliver enhanced patient care when you manage resources efficiently.
 Team Efficiency |  Equipment Utilization |  Investment Decisions |
Unmanaged Resources Can Cost Time and Money
Managing budgets while providing quality care can be a complicated balancing act. Even if you can identify the challenges, finding the right strategies to address them may not be readily apparent.
How well do you manage resources in your imaging operation?
At South Jersey Radiology Associates (SJRA) automatic capture of contrast dose details essentially eliminated dictation errors that previously affected approximately 50% of CT reports. By eliminating the discrepancies in contrast details that required further investigation and correction, Radimetrics® together with our point of care applications** helps SJRA save radiologist dictation time, increase accuracy and improve billing cycle time.*†1
Resource Efficiency Improves Productivity, Workflow, and the Bottom Line
You can control costs and deliver enhanced patient care when you manage resources efficiently.
Team Efficiency |
Equipment Utilization |
Investment Decisions |
Team Efficiency
See How Radimetrics® and Our Point of Care Applications* Can Help Enhance Your Team’s Efficiency.
Help Radiologists Improve Accuracy and Save Time on Rework
Enhancing the efficiency of radiologists by reducing the time spent on routine or bureaucratic tasks can positively affect the health of your imaging department. Our point of care applications§ helped SJRA save radiologist dictation time, yielded increased reporting accuracy, and improved billing cycle time.
Radimetrics® Helps SJRA Increase Reporting Accuracy1
By eliminating the discrepancies in contrast details that required further investigation and correction, Radimetrics® helps SJRA save radiologist dictation time, increase accuracy and improve billing cycle time1.
Reduced Errors, Improved Accuracy
Contrast-enhanced exams are complex acquisitions and suboptimal settings can make it difficult for technologists to perform studies that yield diagnostically useful images. Rescans that double the patient dose also double the work for the technologist and impact the efficiency of your equipment utilization.
Personalized protocols (P3T) help patients receive the right exam, on the right equipment, with the right dose the first time and every time, based on their individual requirements.
Personalized Patient Protocols Help Technologists Deliver Consistent Results
Diagnostic Without Limitation for Pulmonary Embolism (Positive or Negative)*2 – Higher percentage of exams ranked as diagnostic without limitation in the CertegraTM P3TTM PA exams (100%) vs. Standard exams (73%).*‡2
Routine tasks such as reporting and compliance management are time consuming and can interfere with the ability of medical physicists to focus on important quality management functions such as protocol harmonization, statistical process control, and benchmarking.
FDA mandates the reporting of Sentinel Events for interventional radiology procedures, defined as peak skin radiation exposures of 50 mSv or higher. Experienced physicists typically require 2-3 days for the manual calculation of the cumulative radiation of such prolonged procedures.
Annual review of adherence to approved imaging protocols mandated by the American College of Radiology may be performed by consultants doing spot checks on exams, further adding to departmental costs.
The automated reporting capabilities of the Radimetrics® Enterprise Platform can reduce staff burden required to perform administrative compliance functions and potentially save time and money while giving medical physicists more time to focus on quality assurance.
The Radimetrics® Enterprise Platform Products Can Help Reduce Costs Associated With Routine Tasks.
Regulations such as the Euratom Directive are expected to expand the responsibilities of the medical physicist and associated FTE requirements for institutions.4 Automation of data collection and dose calculations can help reduce manual compliance efforts.
Size Effort (FTE)
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Mid-sized imaging center with 2 or 3 CTs |
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Mid-sized hospital with 2 cath labs, 1 interventional suite, and 2 CTs |
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Large clinic with 5 CTs, 4 cath labs, 2 interventional radiology suites and 1 hybrid OR. |
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FTE = fulltime equivalent.
Equipment Utilization
Inefficient Management of Equipment Utilization Costs Time and Money.
Budgetary requirements may lead to a diverse and complex scanner feet. Managing equipment usage can help you gain additional capacity from existing equipment.
For example, the Radimetrics® Enterprise Platform provided Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC) with detailed time stamps for radiation emittance, the patient on the table and time between scans. By reorganizing work flow so the interventionist stays in the room with radiation protection clothing on, MUMC reduced the mean study time for complex CT interventions by 8 minutes and gained additional capacity.5
Analysis of Radimetrics® data helped MUMC not only to understand how complex CT interventions such as transthoracic biopsies are particularly time consuming but also to implement a strategy to address the issue and add additional patients to the schedule.
“We monitor the overall productivity of our CT team and scanners. The developments of productivity can be further analyzed by the type of CT scan and most importantly also by the referring physicians. We also monitor the utilized capacity of our four CT scanners with the goal to reduce idle time.”3
Sebastian T. Schindera, MD
Clinic of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine University of Basel Hospital, Switzerland
In addition, Radimetrics® enabled Peking University First Hospital to discover that their 5 scanners have different capacities and helped them balance work flow. They also were able to help staff anticipate patient volume in the Emergency Department by analyzing average CT capacity during the week.
By providing scanner utilization data, Radimetrics® can help you manage workflow and equipment usage.
Since rescans from aborted or suboptimal contrast enhanced scans effectively double patient dose and table time, contrast dose management is another key aspect of image acquisition.
Radimetrics® contrast analytics, together with our point of care applications, provide you with information that may help your department optimize imaging equipment utilization.
Investment Decisions
Make Investment Decisions Based on Real-World Data From Your Organization.
With increased focus on budgets and the bottom line, ongoing access to data about resource utilization, including contrast, equipment, and staff, can help you make informed business decisions.
University Hospital Basel used Radimetrics® to benchmark the doses between their 4 CT scanners, which are not equally equipped with the latest technologies for dose reduction. At the beginning of the review, 2 of their scanners were equipped with iterative reconstruction technology and automatic tube current modulation, but 2 scanners were not. They discovered that the average effective dose for a routine CT of the chest differed up to 4-fold among their 4 scanners. In addition to using the information to triage patients to the appropriate scanners, they were able to demonstrate how equipment equipped with the latest technologies could positively impact patient care. Based on this information, they purchased a third high-end scanner, which helped harmonize dose distribution among all the department’s scanners.3
Real-world data provided by Radimetrics® can provide not only near real-time information about scanner utilization, but may also give you the necessary factual basis to make new investment decisions.
With increased focus on budgets and the bottom line, ongoing access to data about resource utilization, including contrast, equipment, and staff, can help you make informed business decisions.
University Hospital Essen used Radimetrics® to set dose limits and assess the validity of their organ dose calculations by comparing phantom measurements against the effective radiation doses. They then used the data to compare dose information from scanners of different generations and found dose reductions of 80% during scans with the same protocol. They also used data from Radimetrics® to confirm that the CT equipment’s dose reduction system was able to achieve a 30% lower radiation dose than an older scanner as advertised by the manufacturer.6
Radimetrics® gives you real-world data from your scanner equipment that can be used when evaluating the purchase of new equipment.
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References
* The results cited represent the outcomes achieved by the respective institution and are not necessarily representative of every site. Results will vary based on a site’s existing circumstances and the quality of the improvement programs adopted by the site.
** CT point of care applications available for Medrad® Stellant® on Certerga Workstation
† Requires Medrad® Injection System (Medrad® Stellant for CT or Medrad® MRXperion for MR) with Certegra® Workstation.
‡ P<0.05 Wilcoxon rank sum.
SJRA’s Radimetrics® Enterprise Platform Contrast Dose Management includes the following: Medrad® Stellant D CT Injection System, CertegraTM Workstation, CertegraTM P3TTM Software for Abdomen, Informatics Starter Package. Outbound Interfaces to include: CertegraTM Connect. PACS Application and Speech Reporting –CertegraTM Connect.SR Application**
1 South Jersey Radiology Associates. Using Radimetrics® Enterprise Platform Contrast Dose Management* to improve billing cycle time and enhance reporting efficiencies. Bayer PP-CPC-US-0028. March 2015.
2 Deible et al: A clinical evaluation of an automated software program (Certegra® P3T® PA) for patient specific contrast injection during chest CTA to exclude pulmonary embolism, Bayer Healthcare, November 2014 (RAD-INF-14-06087).
3 Schindera ST. Practical lessons on improving safety, reproducibility and efficiency using a dose management software. November 2014. Bayer.
4 Lenzen et al., Positionspapier zur Umsetzung des Entwurfs der EU-Richtlinie „Euratom Basic Safety Standards“, Fortschr Röntgenstr 2014; 186(4)
5 Maastricht University Medical Center (MUMC). Efficiency in radiation dose management. Application case study. ECR 2016. Bayer Pharma AG. 2016.
6 Quality in Radiation Dose Management – Radimetrics® allows a deeper understanding. ECR 2016— Application Case Study 2. The Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology at University Hospital Essen. Bayer Pharma AG. 2016.
