A mix of business acumen and cultural competency can overcome labor shortages, declining populations and hospital closures in rural areas to improve access to radiology services, according to speakers at the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.
WHY IT MATTERS
By most accounts, rural radiology practice is bleak due to a nationwide physician shortage and a wave of hospital closures, according to RSNA’s Daily Bulletin.
In a resume During a Sunday presentation on the radiology workforce shortage, Danny Hughes, an economist and professor at Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions, said more than 130 rural hospitals closed between 2013 and 2023.
Hughes also noted that recruiting and retaining radiologists in remote areas with potentially lower wages also poses challenges to the success of radiology practices.
Dr. Richard Duszak, professor and chairman of the Department of Radiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, said during the session that average wait times at UMMC improved in about a year and are now zero to two days for most people. radiological services. The number of interventional radiology procedures per month has increased from 380 in July 2022 to 676 in August 2023, he added.
By connecting patients to reliable transportation and speaking directly with patients to ensure they understand the purpose of appointments and test results, the medical center has also been able to reduce no-shows.
Private assets Support – cash and operational support – can be critical for rural specialties, especially during high-casualty events, said Dr. Catherine Joyce Everett, a radiologist in private practice in North Carolina.
When tornadoes hit Kentucky in December 2021, local hospitals were overwhelmed with injuries, she said. She said RP Matrix, Radiology Partners’ teleradiology practice, which operates in all 50 states, has jumped in. The company uses AI-enhanced remote diagnostics, routine subspecialties and after-hours imaging support, according to its website.
While every available radiologist in the region was called in, the tornado disaster created a radiology workload that was too large to keep up.
“Over two days, (RP Matrix Kentucky) read over 650 trauma cases, which is pretty amazing,” Everett said.
“Using the highly requested escalation process, the Matrix team covered three times the normal volumes for Kentucky,” the company said in its report. report about the disaster that killed at least 80 Kentuckians and injured 500.
THE BIG TREND
A physician shortage in the United States is most acute in specialty care, but virtual specialty care is helping to overcome patient access challenges.
Julian Flannery, founder and CEO of Summus Global, a telehealth technology and services company focused on specialty care, says telemedicine must play a central role in solving the specialist shortage.
“Using a model that provides real value to specialists and allows them to scale their expertise will win the day,” he told Healthcare IT news in July.
“For patients, models that can attract high-quality specialists and deep and diverse provider networks will also be enormously valuable.”
ON THE RECORD
“When we look at the data, radiologists in rural areas have so much more variation in their workload and that will be very attractive to a lot of people,” Hughes said at the RSNA annual meeting.
“We strive to create a workforce that is representative of the people we care for, but it will take a decades-long journey to get there,” Duszak added.
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.