RADIOLOGY
Radiology: coping with rising demand
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, radiologists have been facing year-on-year rising demand. University Hospitals North Midlands NHS Trust has been using technology to respond. The Trust has been transforming pathways and providing its professionals with rapid access to crucial diagnostic images, since going live with an advanced picture archiving and communication system from Sectra.
Located just off the busy M6 motorway and treating patients who can be airlifted from as far away as North Wales, the Royal Stoke University Hospital deals with high volumes of patients every day. The hospital, part of University Hospitals
North Midlands NHS Trust, or UHNM, was recognised for having the best survival rates of any major trauma centre in the country in a 2017 independent report. Today, the role of the imaging department is key to continuing to get patients appropriate care quickly. Within minutes of landing on the tarmac or leaving the ambulance, trauma patients can find themselves under a scanner that can capture detailed diagnostic images from head to toe in just seconds. As soon as a scan is complete, the Trust’s radiologists and reporting radiographers are on the case, using a sophisticated picture archiving and communication system – or PACS –
to interrogate the images and to inform a detailed diagnostic report that is fed to hospital clinicians in as little as 20 minutes, allowing appropriate clinical decisions to be made quickly. Dr. Suchi Gaba, a consultant
musculoskeletal radiologist, commented: “It’s a major trauma centre here. That is one of the reasons we are so busy. A great many patients who come to the hospital will have some radiological procedure, whether that’s an x-ray, MRI, or ultrasound, for example. Radiology is at the heart of the hospital and it makes a huge difference if you have good systems and good IT set up.”
The diagnostic backbone It is not just trauma patients that keep diagnostic professionals busy. In usual circumstances, the UHNM imaging department sees more than 9,500 patients
– capturing and reporting on a wide range of medical imaging from simple x-rays to more complex CT and MRI scans. “This makes us one of the busiest NHS imaging departments in England in terms of patient throughput and the volume of cutting-edge machines,” says Dr. Marius Grima, consultant paediatric radiologist and clinical information officer for the children’s, women’s and diagnostics division. “But in terms of radiologists, our number is small compared to other places.” The PACS, implemented by medical imaging provider Sectra in 2017, has been key in enabling radiologists to cope with a 10% year on year rise in demand. “The PACS is the backbone of our
department and we have been using it in innovative and extensive ways to help our patients.” says Dr. Grima.
Notifying cancer patients more quickly
One of those innovative approaches has been to transform how quickly patients are notified if they do or do not have bowel cancer, by drawing on functionality in the PACS and transforming pathways. Dr. Ingrid Britton, consultant gastrointestinal radiologist, said: “We can now identify patients with colorectal cancer while they are still on the scanner. Previously the radiographer would perform the scan, and then place imaging in a queue to be reported by a radiologist, before the report would be sent onto a multi-disciplinary team.
“Now, when radiographers see something during the scan, they alert the imaging team immediately, and using a simultaneous viewing feature in our PACS, radiologists can immediately look at the imaging from their own location and report as the image
MAY 2021
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