As part of the institution's Closed Loop Imaging (CLI) initiative, researchers from the university's School of Medicine developed what they're calling a workflow orchestration dashboard to improve image suite efficiency, long seen as one of the biggest bottlenecks to imaging efficiency.
Patient status information is gathered from the RIS, HIS, and PACS via Web services using a service-oriented architecture (SOA) enterprise service bus (ESB). Information is then presented on a Web page in both a resource-centric view and a patient-centric view.
The resource-centric view uses icons to represent various patient stages, including scheduled inpatient/outpatient, transport, drinking contrast/noncontrast, waiting areas, IV room, and scan rooms. Patient-specific details are shown in the patient-centric view, including scanned screening, requisition, and protocol forms. A patient progress bar is also available.
The institution has found that the clear presentation of patient stages and details has improved overall technologist efficiency, according to the researchers. Dramatic efficiency gains were realized after the workflow orchestration dashboard was deployed at the institution's interventional radiology department, said co-author Dr. Paul Chang, professor and vice chairman of radiology informatics.
The software will now begin a trial in the CT department in early November, and the authors will describe its early experience and present some initial data in their RSNA presentation.
