Teleradiology service completes 10,000 audits

9 March 2010

Teleradiology specialist 4 Ways Healthcare has completed 10,000 audits of its remote radiology service in the UK, assuring the quality of its advanced medical imaging and diagnostic interpretation service.

The company offers a medically-led specialist remote diagnostic service to the NHS, providing specialist teleradiology services to more than 50 NHS organisations. The company's technology gives hospitals access to radiology expertise, providing pay-as-you-go reporting resources to help with the increasing demands placed on diagnostic radiology.

4 Ways Healthcare has been continually auditing all its work for the past five years, using experienced NHS consultants with sub-specialty expertise as independent auditors. The audit team has been reviewing more than 500 reports each month since 2008.

Dr Richard Preece, Medical Director said: "The most important aspect of our audit is that we always remember that the purpose is to promote learning. The audit results are reassuring, but most important is the sharing of knowledge that the audit encourages. Discussion of cases between reporting radiologists and auditors is critical both one-to-one and in regular discrepancy meetings."

Dr Sanjiv Agarwal, CEO of 4 Ways Healthcare, said: "Audit is an essential part of the assurance we give to patients and NHS partners. I'm delighted that we've completed our ten thousandth audit case, as this indicates a very low discrepancy rate in the much larger body of reports from which the random audit sample was drawn. It's a major landmark both for our team and for audit in the UK as it is the largest radiology audit data in the country.

“We think we are now setting a new benchmark in this area. Our auditors have developed a huge body of audit experience that is of real benefit to our own radiologists, and we have found that our radiologists have been attracted by the learning our audit provides, and the opportunity to objectively demonstrate the quality of their work.

"With more than 60 NHS consultants working with us the benefit of the audit of their work is being noticed in many NHS trusts. We are increasingly being asked by NHS trusts to bring our audit expertise to bear on their own work to augment their own clinical governance and address any concerns that arise about reporting."

4 Ways utilises its proprietary 'Audit Software' integrated with its PACS & RIS systems to randomly select a predefined percentage of each clinician's workload according to the modality and sub specialist area and subject that to independent audit. The Audit team comprises well renowned clinicians in their chosen sub specialty and currently in various centre of excellence NHS departments.

 

To top