Radiology plays a fundamental role in health systems because of its significant contribution to patient diagnosis and continual treatment. It’s the starting point that will influence the way that the patient will move through the different forms of medical attention that he or she will receive in their treatment, and as such is a key component of providing value.

It’s a specialty shared in all of the levels of service provision and all of the pecialities that encompasses high-level hospital medicine, primary health care research, detection and healthcare promotion activities.

Diagnostic radiology offers value in clinical evaluations by perfecting diagnoses and lab work results, which reduces the amount of time needed to begin the correct treatment.

However, radiology departments also have the potential to become bottlenecks in any healthcare environment when they lack the resources that the new treatment ecosystem demands, given that this ecosystem is increasingly connected and focused on patient results, which additionally helps to reduce costs.

The correct implementation of digital technology, such as in the area of radiology and imaging, contributes to completely transforming health systems due to updates and improvements in systems and solutions that permit data-gathering from a variety of sources, such as hospitals, doctors ‘offices, consumer apps or connected devices, among others; this data are transformed into processable, varied and relevant patient information that can generate value in medical treatment.

Value-based medical treatment has become an increasingly important concept, used to improve patient results without raising costs. The value-based medical treatment model focuses on promoting the adoption of practices that optimize the relationship between earned health and costs.

To create value in this context, radiology needs new clinical IT solutions that allow for the simplification the management of medical images while driving quality, fostering collaboration, optimizing workflow and diagnostics, as well as delivering greater patient satisfaction and cost reduction. As such, it’s vital to allocate sufficient radiological resources so as to achieve or maintain the efficiency of medical treatment and, therefore, maximize value.

Managing workflows through advanced solutions contributes to the workload being shared equally between radiologists and different sites. Monitoring, managing and analyzing radiology workloads contributes to identifying bottlenecks or problems with some types of tests and offers suitable scans.

An optimized radiology workflow makes it possible to establish specific response times for obtaining critical results from diagnostic tests through markers that allow providers to know when it’s an urgent matter, or through a real time collaboration. Improving the workflow of images and collaboration can have a significant impact on value-based metrics, patient lives and the final results.

Radiology platforms that permit teamwork enrich the path of precision diagnoses, multidisciplinary treatments and making wise decisions while preparing for a surgical procedure. Remote visualization systems also allow links to be shared with radiologists or doctors outside the hospital through mobile devices.

At the end of last year Philips presented the first command center for radiology operations that allows for remote collaboration in real time to expand the experience among technicians, radiologists and imaging operations teams in multiple locations. The digital technology developed by Philips helps maintain business continuity, increases the radiology department’s productivity in health institutions and minimizes the problems with image quality, expanding the access to the advanced diagnostics of MRIs and CT scans.

As it becomes easier to access treatment data more easily, radiology will continue to expand its impact on patient care, ranging from prevention and diagnostics to treatment and recovery. With the right tools, a radiologist could well become an integrator and an analyst of critical clinical data.

Learn More about This Topic in an Upcoming Webinar

Click [https://bit.ly/2SuqbUF] to register for a Spanish-language webinar on May 13 that will explore this topic in greater depth, discussing:

• The benefits of having clinical tools that help to increase productivity
• Consolidating spaces to share information with all decision makers about patient diagnoses
• Direct impacts on hospital productivity