Diagnostic Imaging & Radiation Dose Measuring Resource: Scannerside

What do smoke detectors, airports, cell phones, microwaves, atom bombs, your best friend and that cookie you’re holding have in common? If you answered “a very interesting dream where you are Jason Bourne,” then points for creativity, but the correct answer is radiation. It seems just about everywhere you look, your body is being exposed to some amount of radiation, whether it’s man-made, natural or medical. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that the average American is exposed to about 620 millirem of radiation each year, and that doesn’t include outliers like atom bombs. This isn’t Hiroshima.

It is believed that typically about 96% of a person’s radiation exposure comes from medical procedures, so fortunately you don’t need to be too hung up on your cell phone’ radioactive waves. Pun Intended.

Most patients who are exposed to radiation through medical procedures are receiving those millirem from the following popular diagnostic imaging scans:

Chest X-ray: 10 mrem

Full-body CT: 1,000-mrem

CT of the chest: 700 mrem

CT of the head: 200 mrem

Dental X-ray: 1.5 mrem

X-ray of hand/foot: 0.5 mrem

Of course as patient-consumers, which the health care industry has started to refer to you as with the dawn of better patient education, you should be aware of these things, especially in light of the attention your diagnostic imaging providers are paying towards radiation.  Since 2011, ensuring that hospitals and outpatient imaging facilities are appropriately measuring radiation dose has been a top priority.  It was found that a number of top hospitals in the country were not doing a satisfactory job of tracking dose and reporting on patient dose. Since then, providers have been essentially scrambling to find a way to successfully and efficiently manage the process of radiation dose tracking and reporting.

The search is over my friends. Scannerside, a radiation dose tracking system developed by radiologists Dr. William Moore and Dr. Ronak Talati, has become available to hospitals and radiology departments across the country. Not only is it an especially accurate system for measuring dose, but it also allows for simple patient reporting. Most importantly, it does not require the capital necessary to implement the program into practice protocols, which has been typical of similar systems in the past. Additionally it takes little to no implementation time before staff can utilize Scannerside. This is because it is cloud-based and easily integrates with all EHR, EMR and PACS systems.

 

Learn more about Scannerside and how it is transforming radiation dose tracking and patient experiences by reviewing the white papers and slideshows on their website.

Atlantic Health Solutions Named Approved Distributor of Right Dose INC, D.B.A Scannerside

Atlantic Health Solutions is now an approved distributer of Scannerside, a program that provides and tracks patients’ and radiology providers’ radiation dose from CT scans and angiography procedures.

 

The revolutionary Scannerside system, which allows radiology facilities and hospital departments to track radiation dose more accurately and efficiently, has made a huge splash in the New York market. The ease with which the cloud-based system is integrated into radiology practice protocols helps staff members monitor radiation dose, provide accurate reporting and give patients accurate print-outs of their radiation dose. 

In light of the challenges associated with decreasing dose and radiologists across the country looking for a way to fix to the issue of poor radiation dose tracking, Scannerside is a great solution. Atlantic Health Solutions, industry leading marketing and management provider to radiology and radiation oncology practices, now is an approved vendor of the system and can bring it to your practice today.

Chris Christenberry, Atlantic Health Solution’s CEO said, “This new service adds another layer to the quality management services that Atlantic Health Solutions provides to radiology practices and hospitals and we are pleased to be working with Scannerside to serve more patients and practices.”

Scannerside is a data analysis program that provides and tracks patients’ and radiology providers’ radiation dose from CT scans and angiography procedures.  After their CT procedures, patients receive print-out dose cards, outlining their amount of radiation and the radiology provider is able to keep track of total patient dose administered at their facility.

Real-time data analytics and management capabilities are the proven benefits of utilizing Scannerside at both outpatient diagnostic imaging centers and hospital systems, alike.  Atlantic Health Solutions is dedicated to providing the very best management services to their clients across the country. Christenberry commented “working with Scannerside means that Atlantic Health Solutions will be able to better serve their clients and future clients by providing access to such a user friendly, reliable and necessary program.”

Health Care Costs Not Related to Medical Imaging Scans

An article posted by McKesson discussed issue medical imaging cost have on health care expenditures of late. Some say over-utilization has led to higher health care spending, but it could also be argued that medical spending on health care procedures like MRIs, CT scans and Mammograms could be the first line of defense against illness down the line. We agree that it can stop patients and providers from performing more expensive procedures in the future, when a precautionary scan would have caught a problem earlier.

This is especially true in cases where imaging procedures such as mammograms for breast cancer screenings lead to early breast cancer diagnosis. Recent studies for breast imaging have shown that the amount of lives saved from early detection thanks to annual, regular mammogram imaging outweighs the risks and negative aspects associated with “over-scanning.”

The new study conducted by Steven Duffy, a professor of cancer screening at Queen Mary, University of London, indicates that getting a mammogram every two years outweighs any potential radiation dangers of mammograms.  This is especially true for women between the ages of 50 and 70.  The study, published in the September 13th issue of The Journal of Medical Screening states that for every 1,000 women 4 were over-diagnosed.  The details of the over-diagnosis were that 170 women would have had one recall with a noninvasive test that showed up negative.  However, out of 1,000 women who participated in regular mammograms between the ages of 50-70 with no symptoms of breast cancer, it was found that 9 lives were saved as a result of early detection.

Duffy’s findings prove that over-diagnosis should not be women’s primary concern when it comes to breast cancer screenings, in the same way that preventative scans for other medical reasons should not be a main focal point. The fact is, many patients in the United States are uninsured or underinsured and are forced to go without necessary medical procedures already. We want to empower patients, making them advocates for their own health, especially in cases such as mammogram screenings. There are so many more components of health care spending that could be cut or reallocated to allow for less economic spending, but medical imaging is not the problem.

Health Care Marketing Tools

As promised below are the links to download the white papers of all abstracts presented at Atlantic Health Solutions’ Health Care Marketing Representative and Operations Corporate Training.

Accountable Care Organizations & Radiology here

Changes in Reimbursement in Diagnostic Imaging here

Staffing Changes in Radiology Practices here

Decline in Primary Care Physician Payments here

Trends of HPV and Head & Neck Cancer here

Pay Cuts to Radiology Industry here

Marketing to Patients With New Technology here

Obamacare Effect on Baby Boomer Population here

Effects of Oral Sedation here

Why to Outsource Medical Billing here

Detecting Alzheimer’s With PET/CT Scans here

How Much Danger’s In a Dose of Radiation? here

The Uninsured Patient Population here

Learn more about our work at our website or by contacting marketing@atlantic-hs.com

Atlantic Health Solutions' Health Care Marketing and Operational Management Training 2012

We are proud to have completed our Marketing and Operational Management Training for the year 2012! Training was a success as all of the Atlantic marketing representatives and operations personnel traveled to Tampa for the event on July 16^th and 17^th. Although Florida may have welcomed the teams with scattered thunderstorms, everyone was in high spirits to dig deep into the wealth of information, creativity and ideas that were presented.

Training opened with a variety of discussions on the state of the current market and Atlantic’s place in it. The presentations began with a welcoming message from our fearless leader, Chris Christenberry, discussing the importance of his concept; “Adhere, Nurture, Proliferate” which used the metaphor of a tree to describe Atlantic Health Solution’s role as a company. The roots act to adhere and stabilize the tree and thus symbolize Atlantic’s company culture of maintaining positive attitudes, integrity, tenacity and hard work. The bark of the tree functions to develop and nourish, just as our corporate staff and marketing representatives work to develop relationships with physicians and patients. Lastly, Atlantic’s staff works to proliferate, or affect others in our mission through our dedication to service and community outreach.

Next we participated in a general session of training which focused on strategizing ways to improve performance within the market by fostering creativity. The team felt that this way a great way to kick off the training, as creativity innovation is crucial to maintaining an edge within the market. The teams were then able to split into breakaway sessions to concentrate on leadership and sales-centered topics.

“Who Moved My Cheese?” discussed Spencer Johnson’s short yet educational book discussing the importance of adapting to new environments. This presentation was the ideal session to discuss the changes taking place within the radiology industry and how marketing representatives must adapt and create new strategies to overcome them. Although the “cheese” may be different than it was in yesterday’s market, the team was able to be creative and share strategies that they have experimented with.

“Daring to Be Disruptively Different” discussed avoiding traditional marketing methods and adopting more noticeable marketing campaigns. This became a team favorite, as this session once again highlighted the importance of standing out among competitors with efforts in guerrilla marketing, allowing them to really stretch their creative muscles. Though being disruptively different is the road less traveled, the team learned that it can provide major payoffs. Thinking like a patient and understanding their needs, getting thrifty and being memorable, and knowing how to position yourself to reach your target population are all important in being “disruptively different.”

Presentations weren’t left solely to those heading the general sessions. Each marketing representative and operation’s manager was responsible for presenting an abstract on hot topics in their industry.  This project con sited of creating a board discussing their findings and presenting their conclusions to the rest of the team after becoming experts on their subjects. The abstracts touched on varied topics, giving the opportunity to learn about topics such as PET/CT and Alzheimer’s, Obamacare’s Effect on the Baby Boomer Population, Marketing to Patients and Staffing Changes Within Radiology. A friendly competition ensued to determine who had the most creative and most informative presentations. The title was awarded to Alex Dewey on his presentation regarding Accountable Care Organizations and their effect on Radiology, and Mike Ellis for his presentation about HPV and Head and Neck Cancer. White papers on all of the presentations, including Alex and Mike’s, will be included in our next blog post.

Our training ended with a wonderful trip to Metropolitan Ministries, Tampa’s program designed to provide life-changing answers to local families and individuals suffering hunger, poverty and homelessness.  Metropolitan Ministries aims to instill self-sufficiency, alleviate suffering and promote dignity through a number of programs to help prevent homelessness, ease hunger, offer life-changing opportunities and support transition back into the Tampa Bay community. This amazing opportunity allowed the Atlantic team to really put in place the things they preached throughout the week, allowing hard work to lead to proliferation within our community.

Overall, the staff thoroughly enjoyed traveling from all different stretches of the country to share their ideas, improve strategies for adapting to a changing market, getting to know one another better and having an overall good time. Photos from training can be viewed at out Facebook page here and white papers from each representative will be available next week on our blog!