Radisphere Radiology

What is Radiology?
Radiology is a science where the excessive energy radiation is used for the treatment of disease. In a simpler term, it is actually a medical illustration by using ionizing radiation. The most common of all radiological procedures are x-ray, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound.

The preparatory fact for any Radiology Test
For any test the diagnosis is to happen, there is no specific preparation. It is just that you have to think on a matter that which body part will be scanned. And as per the requirement, the clothing is to be worn.

The metal objects should be removed so as not to interfere with the results. If the test requires you to fast for some time; your doctor will let you know in advance. After all the tests and examination things can be taken as normal as usual.

Just a matter of fact is one should reach 20 minutes before the test. Eat all meals as normal, prescribed by the doctor. Never forget the medication, if any, before and after any test.

Is there any Health Issue?
Definitely, there is a radiation that comes out of the machine and that is getting absorbed. So, this definitely is harming the body to some extent. Though there is no direct proof of radiation causing cancer (like someone claim) there can be some skin disease or hair loss or damage to human cells.

Shower — before or after
Taking shower is one common thing that never needed a doubt. It is one’s own decision of whether or not to take shower during or after the radiology tests. Taking before is not a mandate but after the tests become necessary for an individual as during the tests so much of medical ointment is put on the body that one, obviously, won’t like it after the test. Take into consideration also the type of your shower which can determine your shower experience. There may be some types of shower are looking sleek or beautiful physically but doesn’t function well.

Sometimes during the MRI, the doctors ask to undress and then the checkup is being carried forward. In those cases taking shower is one’s own decision as no one would like to be like the way it was checked, throughout the day. A shower is not required before or after an X-ray. As no such ointment or lotion is being put on the body and patients are dry and usual.

The point is, taking showers after the radiology test is neither forbidden nor made a mandate. There is no medical proof of either of the thing. Being the patient, depending on the situation, you can better decide whether or not to go for the shower. A hot shower or a cold shower can be a confusing brainstorming but, hot showers can be taken into consideration as this will not only keep the body but will also keep it fresh and active as so much will be done during tests.

The doctors can also give their take on this query as after the check up you can directly ask them about the doubt and depending on the medical situation they will better tell you about what all precautions are required after the radiology test.

Foosball is a tabletop version of the sports “soccer”. In this game, players turn the rods that are fixed on top of the playing box in flicking the ball and in striking the ball toward the goal. On these rods are miniature soccer player figures. But have you ever considered the thought that playing a sport like foosball can be beneficial for radiologists?

Below are the skills that are needed to play foosball but can also be used in radiology
An Analytical Mind
In playing foosball, it is important to have a good eye for details as well as good observation skills. A quick eye is necessary to make sure that you won’t miss the ball. Sometimes, it gets frustrating when you want to hit the ball but you and up turning the wrong rod. To avoid this, you must be familiar with the rods as well as the miniature players so you won’t commit the mistake of messing up the game. Similarly, radiologists are required to have an analytical mind. This means that radiologists should be able to analyze ideas and to use logic. They should be able to combine tidbits of information in order to draw a conclusion. The purpose of this is to determine strengths and weaknesses.

Concentration and Focus
One important skill in playing foosball is the focus. A player should concentrate on the game to avoid being distracted. With this skill, a player will definitely score more. This skill is also important in the field of radiology. There are a lot of factors that might cause a radiologist to lose focus, and this has to be avoided. A radiologist’s job is critical so less or no mistake should be committed.

Observation
A foosball player should gauge the capability of the opponent. If the opponent is a better player than he can study how the opponent plays. This is a good way to adjust and plan for the win. In radiology, there are no opponents but that doesn’t mean this skill won’t apply anymore. Part of a radiologist’s job is to manage oneself and other people. This means he should check how other radiologists are doing something or learning something. He should also know how to manage his time and others’ time to help develop and motivate others.

Perception and Visualization
It may take a pro to be able to imagine the possible outcome from doing one move, but its essential for a player to at least have this skill. Being able to calculate the outcome of one move will be very beneficial for a player to score. In radiology, perception and visualization are two important skills to correctly perform a task. This includes identifying a hidden pattern — object, word, or sound; comparing words, letters, patterns, objects, or pictures quickly and accurately; and imagining how something is going to look like if some of its parts are rearranged or if its moved.

Foosball and radiology are associated with each other, although you didn’t really know that until today. Translating the skills for foosball into the field of radiology can greatly benefit radiologists. In this sense, foosball is of high value for radiologists when it comes to performing their job.

Sample Radiology Reports
The following are samples of reports for various modalities and anatomical structures:

1. MRI Brain With and Without Contrast
2. MRI Lumbar Spine Without Contrast
3. MRI Brain With and Without Contrast
4. MRI Right Shoulder
5. MRI Right Wrist Without Contrast
6. MRA Neck With and Without Contrast
7. CT Chest With Contrast
8. CT Brain With and Without Contrast
9. CT Abdomen and Pelvis With Contrast
10. CT Right Ankle
11. CT Right Shoulder

Javier Beltran, MD

Vice Chairman

Musculoskeletal MRI Specialist
American Board of Radiology, Board Certified

Dr. Javier Beltran joins Radisphere with extensive research and experience in the field of musculoskeletal MRI. A pioneer in musculoskeletal MRI, Dr. Beltran serves as Chairman of the Department of Radiology at Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY. He also served as Chief of the Division of Musculoskeletal Radiology at Ohio State University. Widely published and respected in the field of musculoskeletal radiology, Dr. Beltran’s many publications and international lectures have focused on bone and joint imaging to further both his own subspecialty experience and to share knowledge with others in the field.

Residency:

• Diagnostic Radiology (Chief Resident), Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Academic Appointments:

• Former Assistant Professor of Radiology, Chief, Division of Musculoskeletal Radiology and Associate Professor of Radiology Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
• Former Clinical Professor of Radiology New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY

Administrative Appointments:

• Current Chairman, Department of Radiology Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY
• Former Chairman, Department of Radiology Hospital for Joint Diseases, Orthopedic Institute, New York, NY

Published:

• Three books, over 100 articles, 15 book chapters, 25 scientific exhibits, and served in various editorial capacities. Summer 2005 he served as Guest Editor for MRI Clinics of North America issue dedicated to elbow, hand, and wrist.

Course Director:

• Over 300 lectures in National and International forums

Member:

• Inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Radiology (10% of members are selected for this honor)
• Radiological Society of North America
• Society for Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• American Roentgen Ray Society
• American, European, and International Skeletal Societies

Our Standards

Despite its importance to hospital economics and patient care, radiology lags substantially behind other healthcare practices in terms of quality standards. Without comprehensive or consistent quality standards, it is nearly impossible for the practice of radiology to be held accountable for superior, let alone good, service.

Through the direction of the Radiology Quality Institute, Radisphere has integrated the industry’s most stringent performance standards into our care model. In fact, we are pushing the level of accountability within the industry through our 100% commitment to these standards. We not only hold our radiology services accountable to diagnostic accuracy, appropriate utilization and service level excellence; but we also enable system-wide accountability to these standards through our radiology enterprise management solutions.

Our Radiology Performance Standards are:

• Final Reports: Improve accuracy and consistency with final reports 24×7, standardized templates and diagnostic checklists
• Turnaround Time: Deliver final reports within contracted TATs
• Communication: Provide consultations and proactive communication of critical findings within 60 minutes
• Specialization: Provide complete subspecialty coverage and ensure all complex and high-risk imaging is read by the appropriate subspecialist
• Diagnostic Accuracy: Maintain a <2% error rate with comprehensive quality programs that include prospective peer review of all studies and concurrence review of high risk studies
• Utilization: Analyze utilization data by physician, site of care and modality and maintain a <10% follow-up imaging rate
• By establishing best practice criteria and setting standards by which to measure the performance of radiologists and radiology providers, the entire practice of radiology is elevated to a new level of value to referring physicians, hospitals at large, and the entire health system. As a result, health systems can better evaluate and manage the performance of their radiology enterprise to ensure radiologists are providing the best service to referring physicians and hospitals are providing the best service to patients.

Additional Resources:

• RQI Radiology Performance Standards
• Radisphere Performance Scorecard
• Radiology Enterprise Management Brochure
• RadVision Service Datasheet
• Creating a New Standard in Radiology White Paper
• RQI eBook: 10 Best Practices for Remodeling Radiology

Thomas Pope, MD
Vice Chairman

Breast Imaging Specialist
American Board of Radiology, Board Certified

Thomas Pope, M.D. is an internationally recognized musculoskeletal radiologist and has been recognized by the ACR as an Expert in Breast Imaging. He is a guest examiner in Breast Imaging for the American Board of Radiology. He has published extensively and has worked as a highly regarded manuscript reviewer for prominent radiology publications. Dr. Pope is a frequent Visiting Professor at the prestigious Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

Residency:

• Diagnostic Radiology, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA

Academic Appointments:

• Former Professor of Radiology & Orthopaedics, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC
• Former Boerhaave Endowed Professor, Leiden University, the Netherlands
• Former Visiting Scientist and now Visiting Faculty Lecturer, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Musculoskeletal Section Former Associate Professor of Radiology & Orthopaedics, Wake Forest Univ., Winston-Salem NC
• Former Assistant/Associate Professor of Radiology & Director of General Diagnosis Section, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA
• Former Assistant Professor of Radiology, Director of Primary Care Radiology & Mammography, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA

Editorial Experience:

• Serves as manuscript and book reviewer for American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), Radiology, and Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery, as well as maintains positions as Assistant, Associate, and Managing Editor for various prominent radiology publications.

Member:

• American College of Radiology
• American Board of Radiology
• American Roentgen Ray Society
• International Skeletal Society
• Radiology Society of North America
• Society of Skeletal Radiology

Our Solutions for Health Systems

Radisphere’s Radiology Enterprise Management (REM) solutions enable health systems that are thinking about the shift towards value to measure and improve their enterprise-wide radiology performance. They allow health systems to establish a common set of radiology standards, gain transparency into performance, and ensure compliance. As a result, health systems are able to eliminate errors, variation, and waste across the enterprise, improving the overall quality and cost of patient care.

Radiology Solutions & Management

Our REM solutions include cloud-based technology and are packaged as two distinct service offerings, RadVision and RadPerform.

RadVision services enable systems to:

• Create complete transparency into performance against enterprise-wide standards
• Establish statistically significant, unbiased quality data for true comparisons
• Establish internal and national benchmarking and analytics
• Identify clinical variation across the system and opportunities for optimization

RadPerform services enable systems to:

• Actively manage performance and leverage scale to eliminate clinical variation
• Reduce labor costs through prospective capacity planning and resource allocation
• Reduce unnecessary utilization with real-time decision support by place of service
• Reduce downstream cost in a population health environment
• Facilitate the timely communication of critical findings and consultations
• Access national teleradiology networks as needed to optimize compliance to standards

These services are built upon a cloud-based workflow management technology platform that enables a common worklist and reporting structure across all system facilities and providers. They are delivered on top of and agnostic to existing technology (i.e., PACS, RIS, EMR) and radiology groups. Systems can manage their radiology enterprise in an integrated fashion and optimize performance to improve quality of care in identified opportunity areas, manage unnecessary utilization, and reduce downstream medical costs.