Teleradiology and Service System Enhance Quality and Boosts Radiology Group Productivity

A Consult PreRead includes references to prior studies, relevant patient clinical information or data requested in the radiology order, and extensive measurements of relevant and incidental pathology and associated key images. The company plans to begin offering the Merge TeleRead application and Consult PreRead service to its customers in the first quarter of 2008.

The Consult PreRead is designed to provide another level of quality control and assuredness for the official final diagnostic report (which Merge's radiology group customers' licensed U.S. radiologists are responsible for preparing) while enhancing the productivity of the reading radiologist. Basically, upon completion of the official read by the radiologist, the medical imaging study has been triple-read before it goes back to the referring physician from the radiologist.

Merge will initially offer its teleradiology services to existing Merge Healthcare Fusion radiology information system (RIS) and Fusion RIS/picture archiving and communication system (PACS) customers, but intends to offer these services to users of non-Merge RIS and RIS/PACS customers in the near future.

The Consult PreRead service is tightly integrated with Merge's Fusion RIS and RIS/PACS technologies, which are built around a multi-site distributed workflow model that is designed to enable Merge to provide a seamless workflow for Fusion RIS and Fusion RIS/PACS customers. In contrast, typical teleradiology workflow typically requires many manual steps and significant data entry that can slow workflow and increase the likelihood of human error.

Integration of the Consult PreRead service with the new Merge TeleRead system and the Fusion RIS and RIS/PACS products will create a seamless link through which Merge's offshore radiologist consultants become a valuable resource within the U.S. customers' workflow. All that should be required for a current Fusion RIS/PACS customer to benefit from Merge's teleradiology service is a remote installation of the new Merge TeleRead module to connect their system to the Consult PreRead service.

Studies that radiology groups want to send out for Consult PreReads are simply placed in a special teleradiology worklist that is located within a customer's Fusion RIS worklists. These studies can be routed automatically through workflow routing rules, or else radiologists or technologists can merely click on the cases they want to send out for review. The Merge TeleRead module manages the transmission of these images and information to the U.S.-based Merge RIS/PACS Teleradiology data center for distribution to remote reading centers. For example, when a radiologist signs off for the day, he or she can forward all received studies to Merge TeleRead until they next log on to the RIS.

The Consult PreRead is an intensive activity, involving prescreening, reviewing historical patient information, reviewing prior studies, selection of key images, measurements, annotations, and generation of a detailed report. The finished Consult PreRead report and key images appear in the designated U.S.-based radiologist's worklist queue within minutes of the completion of the Consult PreRead in India. The U.S. licensed radiologist at the customer site then performs a complete official final read and issues a signed report to the referring physician.

Merge's teleradiology service has incorporated Teleradiology Practice Analysis functionality in the Fusion RIS. This unique capability allows Merge to perform real-time tracking of customer studies in the Merge system, to analyze radiologist deliverables, and to track and measure quality of performance indicators.


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