Combining Services for Better Care
Aug. 4, 2014
Radiology representatives have come together, asked for suggestions, reviewed our processes, and structured an outline of how Radiology can reach its financial goal of $7.8 million in cost reductions.
One of the first initiatives put into action was a consolidation of resources for CT on the Clifton Campus. Not only would this consolidation reduce expense, it would minimize the confusion of patients and physician offices in trying to determine CT locations and improve our ability to safely monitor our services. Additionally, we were able to add a cardiac SPECT unit to meet clinical and research demands. For this to happen, we had to remove the scanner from WCI and relocate two CT technologists from Building A to WCI; additionally, we moved the Siemens cardiac CT scanner from Building A to WCI. This was all done on a strict timeline of about 3 ½ weeks. This move reduced the actual scanners in TEC down to two from three. The staff has been exceptional during this entire process. As we know, change often brings uncertainty, but they were more than up to the task. The demand to become more versatile as technologists was a welcome challenge for the team and they embraced training sessions from day one. Of course, there were concerns of how this would actually work, but they were positive in their attitude and helped provide solutions to make this a swift and productive change. Even with training still in progress, we have been able to serve almost the same number of patients as previously done on three scanners. Starting in September, there are plans to extend CT hours of operation to offer our patients greater choice and to increase capacity.
Many people from a variety of departments worked together to make this change happen in a quick and expert manner. The CT staff in the A Building and WCI deserve special recognition for their adaptability and hard work. Efforts like theirs will successfully enable us to meet our ongoing fiscal challenges while at the same time improving the patient experience. This is the first of several projects that will be initiated within the next few months. For CT, it helped that all – physicians, technologists, nurses, and our front desk staff – demonstrated an open-mindedness and focused on the overall objective of providing value to our patients and families. At the same time, we will need, as we saw with the CT project, all staff and Patient Family Advisors to provide feedback so that we can implement change after considering the implications and ensuring optimal planning.
