GE Aims to Improve Radiologist Productivity and Reduce Burnout with New Collaboration

GE Healthcare is introducing a new solution utilizing predictive analytics to help increase reading capacity by up to 20% to improve radiology productivity and reduce burnout. The company announced at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) 2022 Annual Meeting that it is collaborating with Q-IT, LLC to integrate its Helix Radiology Performance Suite into its PACS solutions.

The innovative intelligent workload management solution, which operate on predictive analytics, can optimize radiologists’ workflow across an entire enterprise to enable reading at peak efficiency to improve radiology productivity and reduce burnout. It’s also designed to allow for more accurately predicting and distributing workload, and more fairly measuring performance against compensation.

Radiologists and administrators often face challenges optimizing the exam workload across their workforce and their practices. Huge, complex exam lists, extreme variability in study complexity, widely varying radiologists’ skillsets, contractual service level agreements (SLAs), and variable location-specific service requirements make it difficult to distribute work across the group efficiently and fairly, resulting radiologists to experience burnout, as well as “cherry-picking.”

“A traditional radiology worklist is a complex, relatively static and filterable list of stat and non-stat exams,” said Elizabeth Bergey, MD, President and CEO, Quantum Imaging & Therapeutic Associates. “Between each interpretation, radiologists spend valuable time, energy and angst selecting the next case. Ideally, every exam should be read by the most appropriate radiologist, but SLAs are an important constraint. With this intelligent workload management solution, enterprise equilibrium is achieved by intelligently prioritizing and dynamic exam assignment based on the real-time assessment of the active radiologist workforce, their skillsets and using novel exam complexity modifiers to help enable the right radiologist is reading the right exam at the right time. These advancements have allowed us to experience a rapid productivity increase of 15-22% that has been sustained.”

Additionally, Quantum Imaging & Therapeutic Associates has seen in their use:

• 7% (from 18 min to 15 min) improvement in super STAT turnaround times (TAT)
• 5% (from 32.2 in to 25.6 min) improvement in STAT/ED TAT
• 8% (from 147.2 to 125.4 min average) improvement on inpatient TAT on exams distributed through the solution

The percent of SLA exceptions across the practice for ED, inpatient and outpatient exams has been cut by more than half, which helps to drive efficiency and lower cost

“Radiologists are desperate for the latest tools to keep up with an ever-increasing case load. The new intelligent management workload uses predictive analytics to efficiently allocate case workload improving radiologists’ productivity, while providing more work and life balance,” said Nalinikanth Gollagunta, CEO, Enterprise Digital Solutions, GE Healthcare.