Radiology, a core element of the healthcare system in Australia

As healthcare evolves, so does the role of imaging. The shift to value-based models means playing an active role throughout the patient journey — and keeping a watchful eye on outcomes.

One of the worldwide responses to a value-based approach is the better coordination of care across health and social services, and crucially, within the different levels of healthcare.

Analytics help healthcare organisations align with these new models while helping to improve patient care and outcomes.

With a Diagnostic Imaging Services market size of $4.3bn in Australia, diagnostic imaging reports are arguably the most important assets radiologists contribute to patient care — helping to improve health outcomes by enhancing the diagnosis of medical conditions and guiding treatment protocols.

In radiology, the pressure is on to deliver even more in even less time and prove downstream value to care teams. Fortunately, radiology organisations can now effectively harness radiology-specific analytics to support their clinical decision-making and operations — whether the technology is streamlining MIPS reporting, profiling performance, or addressing critical issues like failed follow-ups.

AI is becoming the doctor’s best assistant — accessible anywhere, and anytime.

New technologies in healthcare, particularly in medical imaging, allow the collection of increasingly diverse, rich and voluminous data, requiring on the one hand, large storage capacities and, on the other, sophisticated analyses requiring huge computing power. Solutions to these issues exist today with cloud computing and AI, provided that patient data is protected. In doing so, healthcare organisations can save time, improve accuracy in diagnosis, better allocate their resources and optimise their productivity.

Right now, AI is transforming radiology — whether it’s supporting diagnosis and care planning, enabling clinical research, or powering quality improvement initiatives. But the field of AI-driven analytics is often new to radiologists and their organisations.

AI and cloud computing make the perfect match for data driven decisions. Insights lead to better understanding and help inform and assist in the decision-making process. The time saved in analysing reports and images can now be spent with patients or taken for personal activities and reducing clinician burnout.

Whoever has the information, has the power

In 2018–19, more than 27 million radiology procedures were funded through the Medicare Benefits Schedule. Radiologists who supervised these exams, interpreted the images, and wrote reports to share with the patients, GPs and clinicians. The radiology reports must contain consistent information and recommendations about the pathologies of the patients.

In the radiologist journey, a tailored analytics solution can increase value by providing actionable insights to support radiologists in making better informed clinical decisions — every day.

With Nuance mPower Clinical Analytics, a cloud-based solution, hosted on Microsoft Azure in Australia, an ISO 27001 certified infrastructure, imaging services teams can access actionable insights that help optimise radiology performance, reduce cost and increase revenue — all while enhancing patient care.

mPower instantly offers easy-to-understand information that eliminates the time-consuming, iterative process typical of data analysis.

It also provides an unmatched look at the organisation’s report quality and business performance giving the ability to review reporting versus billing to ensure all radiology exams are reported and claimed legitimately with Medicare.

Nuance mPower Clinical Analytics HealthCheck uses AI-powered natural language processing to extract data from radiology reports that reveal insights leading to practice improvements such as the strengthening of follow-up consistency, total cost of ownership reduction, increased revenues and enhanced compliance.

Reduced risk of burnout

With 82% of Australian clinicians in a recent HIMSS survey believing that the administrative burden of clinical documentation contributes significantly to overload, most importantly, the right technology can combat radiologist burnout, while delivering more value and better care.