ABOUT ASSOCIATED RADIOLOGISTS LLP
Based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Associated Radiologists LLP is the city’s largest provider of medical imaging services. Formed in 1946, the organization is made up of three clinics around Saskatoon, with a fourth clinic located 150km north of the city in Prince Albert.
With 24 radiologists and nuclear medicine physicians on staff, Associated Radiologists reads over 350,000 studies per year and counts a number of hospitals as clients, including St. Paul’s and City Hospital in Saskatoon, and Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert. Additionally, the organization reads for 30 rural hospitals, and has nuclear medicine partners based out of Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital.
DEPLOYING INTELEPACS
Until 2009, all of the reads conducted at Associated Radiologists’ private clinics were done using film. Despite having familiar processes in place, conducting and interpreting 100,000 scans in-house each year stretched the organization’s resources. As keeping up with the daily flow of studies became a daunting task, the decision was made to transition towards a digital environment.
As they began to conduct research into the various solutions on the market, and speaking with other organizations about the radiology systems and solutions they had in place, Associated Radiologists began receiving recommendations from radiologists and PACS administrators to look into IntelePACS®.
To learn more about IntelePACS, the organization spoke with a number of Intelerad customers and made site visits to see the solution first-hand. Before long, the solution’s value became clear and the decision was made to deploy IntelePACS.
“We have cases where a patient has had an ultrasound done in a hospital 275 kilometers away and the report is in the referring physician’s office before the patient has left the hospital.”
A TURNKEY SOLUTION FOR THE ORGANIZATION
Having deployed other enterprise software solutions in the past, Associated Radiologists was prepared for a stressful PACS implementation and transition from film. Thankfully, that was not the case.
“I was surprised how easy the deployment was – very straightforward. Intelerad also referred a hardware vendor, so it was mostly turnkey,” says Kelly Prodanuk, Business Manager. “We decided on a back-up plan prior to deployment, which was to continue producing film for the first week, but by 10 o’clock that first morning, we stopped. From then on we’ve used IntelePACS.”
A RADIOLOGY SYSTEM THAT DELIGHTS USERS
From the start, Associated Radiologists benefitted tremendously from two key aspects of IntelePACS: its reliability and ease of use. While the solution’s remarkable uptime has been tremendously beneficial for covering a large territory from multiple imaging centers, its usability has helped in getting end users trained quickly, including residents who do breast rotations through their private facility.
“We have received many positive comments from our IntelePACS users, whether it is our radiologists, residents, or referring physicians who access their patient images and reports on-line – the system is easy to use and requires very little instruction,” says Prodanuk. “For example, we had a resident start a rotation with us on a busy Monday morning and the radiologist mentoring the resident was delayed. We provided the resident log-on access to the system without any orientation. Shorty thereafter, his comment was ‘Wow, this is easy to use’.”
This ease of use, coupled with InteleViewer™’s integrated workflow, has been instrumental in significantly improving individual performance at Associated Radiologists and making the caseload easier to manage.
IMPROVED SERVICE QUALITY TO RURAL CUSTOMERS
The organization has also benefitted from IntelePACS’ web-based architecture. Ideal for multi-site organizations, the solution not only provides rapid access to current and prior exams and reports, but also increases the speed at which results are transferred to referring physicians, particularly those located in remote areas.
“We have cases where a patient has had an ultrasound done in a hospital 275 kilometers away and the report is in the referring physician’s office before the patient has left the hospital,” says Prodanuk. “The physicians frequently say, ‘How can they do that?’. It makes us look very good, that we can provide a high level of service in rural communities, which have struggled to get that kind of patient care.”
LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY TO STAY AHEAD OF THE PACK
So pleased with the service that Associated Radiologists has been able to provide using IntelePACS, regional hospitals have begun adding InteleViewer to their existing workstations in order to access the group’s central image repository. For radiologists, this allows them to gain access to previous film, while referring physicians view images and reports from any location – including their home or office.
For Associated Radiologists, having been early adopters of Intelerad solutions has helped cement their reputation as being a technologically-advanced imaging group.
“We’ve always been known in our market as being the group who try to keep the latest and best equipment in our shop,” says Prodanuk. “Adding a high-end PACS reinforces our commitment to stay at the forefront of technology and use the best equipment and software solutions available.”