About Loyola University Health System
Loyola University Health System (LUHS) is a member of Trinity Health. Based in the western suburbs of Chicago, LUHS is a quaternary care system that includes Loyola University Medical Center, located on a 61-acre campus in Maywood, Gottlieb Memorial Hospital on a 36-acre campus in Melrose Park and convenient locations offering primary and specialty care services throughout Cook, Will and DuPage counties.
At the heart of Loyola University Medical Center is a 547-licensed-bed hospital that houses the Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine, the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, a Level 1 trauma center, a burn center, a children’s hospital and the Loyola Outpatient Center. The campus also is home to Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing and the Loyola Center for Fitness.
“Our reason for deploying Intelerad was a receptiveness to work together to develop items. Since selecting Intelerad, we’ve worked closely and collaboratively, and today get support from a team that knows the hospital intimately”
Gottlieb’s campus includes a 254-licensed-bed community hospital, a Professional Office Building with 150 private practice clinics, an adult day care program, the Gottlieb Center for Fitness, the Loyola Center for Metabolic Surgery and Bariatric Care and Loyola Cancer Care & Research at the Marjorie G. Weinberg Cancer Center at Melrose Park.
Unifying Radiology Departments Across Multiple Campuses
In 2012, LUHS was feeling the limitations of their legacy system. On the radiologist side, there was a growing dissatisfaction with the viewer. Not only were hanging protocols difficult to manage, but they were unable to read ultrasounds from the system. This meant switching between systems depending on the modality they were interpreting, which created an inefficient workflow.
At the same time, plans were being made to integrate the radiology departments from the main campus and the Gottlieb campus. One impediment was that each campus operated off its own PACS, each from a different vendor. This meant that despite efforts to unify the departments, they essentially had two teams working separately (or in parallel) under one umbrella.
Knowing that a unified workflow would vastly improve operations, LUHS began looking for solutions that would connect radiologists to the multiple archives within its imaging ecosystem. This lead them to InteleOne XE, Intelerad’s cross-enterprise workflow solution. Highly regarded for its interoperability, the solution would provide radiologists with a state-of-the-art viewer (Intelerad’s InteleViewer™) that connected seamlessly to each of the hospital’s legacy systems.
Leveraging a Unified Workflow
By integrating single sign-on access to the entire imaging ecosystem, InteleOne XE was able to create a cross-enterprise workflow across all LUHS sites. In doing so, LUHS was able to truly unify their department, something that has been met with a lot of enthusiasm from radiologists.
“Having InteleOne XE definitely feels like an improvement over our legacy system,” said
Dr. Scott Mirowitz, Professor and Chairman of Radiology and Medical Director of Telemedicine at Loyola University Health System. “The system has been successful in uniting the workflow between hospitals and clinics, and makes it easier to read from home during off hours.”
Leveraging Subspecialists
In addition to reducing turnaround times, having a unified workflow across sites has also helped with subspecialist utilization, allowing each modality to be read by the appropriate radiologist.
“On a smaller campus, it’s hard to have a full array of subspecialists,” said Dr. Mirowitz. “With InteleOne XE, all of the subspecialties can be integrated seamlessly across both campuses.”
Having a unified set of subspecialists may also play a role in increasing study volumes and expanding their service area, as InteleOne XE’s ability to connect to disparate repositories will enable LUHS to provide specialty reads for other hospitals within their healthcare system.
In addition to workflow gains, radiologists at LUHS have reported high levels of satisfaction with the interface provided by InteleViewer. In addition to its ease-of-use, it also enables radiologists to read all their cases, including ultrasound, from a single viewer.
Relationship with Intelerad
Since deploying InteleOne XE, Dr. Mirowitz estimates that the study volume at LUHS has increased by 20-25%. While he relates this more to opening new sites of service as opposed to deploying a new system, he’s quick to point out that InteleOne XE makes it easier and less costly to add new sites, while having an efficient workflow across sites helps with managing the additional volume.
As a department that is constantly working to enhance its workflow, LUHS has worked closely with Intelerad to routinely evaluate how the system is being used and to address unique needs of an academic hospital.
“Our reason for deploying Intelerad was a receptiveness to work together to develop items,” said Dr. Mirowitz. “Since selecting Intelerad, we’ve worked closely and collaboratively, and today get support from a team that knows the hospital intimately.”