Imaging leaders face critical issues like failed follow-up, burnout, and facing an evolving healthcare landscape. They are pressured to solve for today and position their organizations to handle tomorrow’s challenges. This can mean applying technology in new or unconventional ways. This blog series highlights recent webinars in which our customers shared best practices and lessons learned as they tackle these issues. Their stories are powerful and full of actionable information. This first installment features Joseph Guiffrida, Chief Operations Officer of ARA Health Specialists, and how mPower Clinical Analytics provides insight to help close the loop on patient follow-up.
Diagnostic imaging administrators and care teams continue to look for new ways to solve critical issues like failed follow-up, inefficiency and burnout, and a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape. They are pressured to handle today’s challenges while positioning their organizations to handle tomorrow’s unknowns – whatever they may be. Often that means applying technologies in unconventional ways and sometimes leaning into data analytics to break down silos and focus on new approaches to solving old problems.
We have long worked shoulder-to-shoulder with our customers in these – and many other – challenges. Their stories are powerful and inspiring. They’re also pragmatic and full of actionable information other healthcare administrators and diagnosticians can depend on to reimagine their own work environments.
Earlier this year, we began highlighting these stories in our six-part Solving the Issues fireside chat series. Our customers shared their insights, best practices, takeaways, and lessons learned when taking on the issues of failed follow-up, efficiency and burnout, and preparing for the future of healthcare.
Quality analytics: Revealing actionable insights to deliver value
Concerns about patient safety and failed follow-up were top of mind for ARA Health Specialists in Asheville, North Carolina. In this fireside chat, the group’s Chief Operations Officer Joseph Giuffrida discusses how they tackled missed follow-ups head-on, proactively harnessing analytics and advanced language processing to streamline their operations while preventing patients from falling through the cracks. He explains in detail how they rely on mPower Clinical Analytics to provide the data and insight to focus their efforts and help close the loop on failed follow-up.
“When you look at something like loop closure on recommended follow-ups, it’s not something that will get better on its own. You need to align with your clinicians and referring physicians, but it does take another step. We do this with Nuance solutions,” he said.
For the ARA Health Specialists team, that means using clinical analytics to shine the light on recommended follow-ups for incidental findings buried within radiology reports. The power of language processing automates the data extraction and helps to identify the patients they need to track. Why is this so critical? Says Guiffrida, “When you have an exam with an incidental finding, we have an opportunity to effectively call it a ‘screening exam.’ Can we then lead patients to an earlier diagnosis?”
They can and often do. In fact, as Guiffrida explained during his fireside chat, they’re seeing “earlier detection, better patient outcomes, and benefits to the health system from treating patients earlier and not when they’re coming in with stage four cancer.” That combination isn’t just good for patients and providers – it’s having an even broader impact on the community and public health.
As ARA looks ahead, Guiffrida says they’ll continue using mPower to uncover greater insights to drive additional initiatives like this one for incidental finding recommendations. With the right tools and strategies in place, they are well armed to continue tackling the issue of failed follow-up, while preparing their organization for whatever the future may bring.
Want to hear more about how ARA Health Specialists are applying technology and analytics to improve outcomes? View Quality analytics: Revealing actionable insights to deliver value.