Here’s what HealthViewX did at one of our key clients, a leading imaging center in the US – where we implemented an efficient, patient-centric system for managing referrals.

Imaging centers are under growing pressure as gaps in the referral processes and the resultant loss of referrals is adversely impacting revenues. The main gaps in the process are improper referral data exchange, lack of visibility on referral status aside and delayed delivery of reports.

An answer to solving this challenge cannot be merely expanding staff or teams. To justify the productivity of a large team will be an additional challenge.

Before embarking on a solution that would fit the need, we presented a few questions to the client team:

• Which point in the process are we losing patients?
• What constitutes an “appropriate” referral?
• Are we providing the right response, at the right time, at the right frequency, for the right duration?

The answers to these questions pointed us to certain parts of referral routine that needed intervention. The flow of patient information, the capture of historic data & detailed patient information and tracking of follow-up information stood out as major improvement areas. A much-needed interoperability strategy backed by our referral management system to streamline workflows, enhance referral networks and increase referrals was put in place. In the new system, there is provision to establish a communication channel between all stakeholders involved, trigger notifications on status changes, track status until referral closure and be on top of the referrals at any point.

In addition to these mandatory features that create direct impact on the problem statements, there are also options to create customized templates based on the specialty they serve like for a cardiology scan centre, orthopaedic centre; ability to create orders in external systems and pull data/reports from external devices/applications and share it with referring provider/ practices thereby reducing the processing time for each order and resulting in quick turnaround time. To enable true interoperability, the platform safely and securely exchanges this patient data with physicians. Automated delivery to distribute images and reports directly to a referring physician was made possible.

To summarize some of the key benefits:

By adopting a platform that offers advanced interoperability, apart from important benefits of streamlined workflows, the growth of referral networks and improvements to the bottom line, clients also see a reduction in unnecessary imaging. By streamlining the workflows and eliminating time-consuming calls/ to and fro communication for authorization we were able to dramatically reduce the cost of unnecessary and inappropriate imaging.

But before embarking on a technology journey to improve the referral scenario at your practice or center we need to start by asking the right questions and most often, all answers point to enabling interoperability. ‘Care’ to start here? Schedule a demo