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vRad’s Technology and Radiology Workflow Innovations

vRad’s Commitment: getting the right study to the right physician – at the right time – saves lives.

Delivering the best possible care—meeting fast turnaround times while providing accurate interpretations—now means using technology both to deliver quality patient care and to provide quantitative insight demonstrating value-based results.
Benjamin W. Strong, CMO vRad

vRad is a technology-enabled practice.  Innovation drives our practice workflows. 20 patents cover our proprietary teleradiology image distribution, enabling referring physicians to quickly and securely pass patient imaging and information to radiologists, improving the speed, accuracy, and cost of clinical diagnoses.

We have invested over $55M+ in cloud-based technology, including Natural Language Processing (NLP), Voice Recognition, Structured Reporting and Deep Learning/Artificial Intelligence to develop our 360⁰ Optimized Radiology Workflow which supports the distribution, prioritization and completion of millions of annual imaging studies – as well as the real-time personal connections between nearly 500 physicians serving 2,100 hospitals, health systems and radiology group facilities.

vRad’s 360⁰ Optimized Radiology Workflow

Each step in our 360⁰ Optimized Radiology Workflow is built with the health of our patients – and the efficiency of our physicians and physician-partners in mind.  Each component— from our ICD-10- compliant intelligent branching “reason for exam” radiology order submittal process, to our post-diagnostic analytics and benchmarking capabilities — provides evidence-based insight to help clients make better decisions for the health of patients and their practice of radiology.   Below is a visual snapshot of our 360⁰ Optimized Radiology Workflow — read on for more details.

Delivering the best possible care—meeting fast turnaround times while providing accurate interpretations—now means using technology both to deliver quality patient care and to provide quantitative insight demonstrating value-based results.
Benjamin W. Strong, CMO vRad
vRad has become a center of excellence in the radiology field, rivaling major academic centers in its contribution to the future of radiology.
FORRESTER RESEARCH

Key Components of vRad’s 360⁰ Optimized Radiology Workflow Include:

SPOTLIGHT: vRad’s Radiology Orders  ICD-10 Compliant Clinical History: 

Moving a practice, group or even a health system with multiple hospitals to an ICD-10 – compliant clinical documentation solution has been and continues to be challenging. vRad successfully transitioned 2,100+ client facilities to a technology-driven solution that meets the full level of code specificity a full year before the October 1, 2016, deadline.  An automated “Intelligent Branching” solution is now integrated into vRad’s study order workflow in OMS, our online Order Management Solution. Technologists and/ or referring physicians optimize clinical and financial outcomes simply by answering a dynamic checklist using information that should be readily available and relevant to making the exam order decision.  The end result: the pre-population of the imaging report with detailed clinical history descriptions required to inform (1) the interpreting radiologist for better clinical care, and (2) the coder for the proper selection of the relevant ICD-10 code for optimal reimbursement.

For more details on how we prepared our practice, including having 100% of our radiologists complete ICD-10 training and pass certification requirements, read our white paper: ICD-10 An Informed and Intelligent Transition.

SPOTLIGHT: vRad’s Auto-Routing Workflows — focused on getting the right study to the right radiologist in the shortest amount of time.

vRad’s state-of-the-art, patented, rules-driven case assignment is fundamental to the efficiency of our practice and quality patient care.  Our reading platform, combined with the support of our 24/7 Operations Center Team, maximizes our radiologists’ clinical focus or “eyes on images,” and minimizes administrative distractions. The patented, rules-based platform automatically and intelligently routes tens of thousands of patient studies every day to the best available radiologist(s) based on physician licensing and credentialing status, worklist depth, subspecialty expertise, facility preference and study type.  vRad’s order protocols, including Stroke, Trauma, and Emergent study prioritization also lead to better patient outcomes and client satisfaction.

SPOTLIGHT: Custom Structured Reports – for consistent, high-quality – and highly actionable diagnoses

Another integral component of our practice workflow is our Custom Structured Reports which integrates Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing and Structured Reporting. This proprietary workflow enables our physicians to create reports in real-time using advanced, macro-driven, line-by-line voice recognition that keeps their eyes on patient images – and off of their dictation windows. This leads to faster turnaround times with higher accuracy.  This innovative technology integration also allows for automated Critical Findings communication – and improved curated data for post-diagnostic analytics and benchmarking.

Watch the video below to see vRad’s CMO, Dr. Benjamin W. Strong, demonstrate our reading platform and Custom Structured Report solution.

SPOTLIGHT: vRad’s Auto-Dial — “Listening” for critical findings.

There is nothing more important to our practice than quickly and effectively communicating a patient’s critical finding, which our clients routinely cite in our annual survey as being one of our greatest strengths. When enabled, vRad empowers our radiologists to use Natural Language Processing to “listen” for critical finding statements in real-time during radiologist dictation. If a critical finding is dictated in a report, a call to the referring physician is automatically triggered – reducing critical finding relay times to under 2 minutes.

vRad’s technology solutions empower our physicians and our practice because they are developed in partnership between IT and medical leadership. The operational and clinical teams work collaboratively, resulting in tangible benefits for our clients and patients. Click to learn more about vRad’s unique CMO – CIO partnership: Read the CMO/CIO forecast for 2016: New breakthroughs in radiologist workflow optimization.