March 19, 2018 — Nine months after the implementation of Exa PACS (picture archiving and communication system) from Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas Inc., a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based teleradiology provider and one of the state’s largest radiology imaging suppliers, has significantly increased volume and productivity. According to Radiology Imaging Solutions, this has generated a significant return on its healthcare information technology (IT) investment. The company has doubled the number of imaging sites its radiologists are providing reading services for. By implementing Exa’s Voice Recognition in place of traditional transcriptionists, their productivity has also increased by 400 percent. Radiologists are reading 2.5 times the number of studies with no corresponding increase in working hours and decreasing report turnaround times (TATs) by over 50 percent.
“With Exa, we found a product that delivered more than we had expected in terms of cost-effectiveness and return on our investment,” said Randy Robinson, owner, Radiology Imaging Solutions. “It delivers a top-class software environment with affordable pricing — almost unheard of in our industry —and is a great product, with great people, who stand behind it. With Exa, Konica Minolta not only delivered every bit of what was promised but much more than that with advanced technology, service and support.”
Exa utilizes server-side rendering for fast access to large files, such as 3-D mammography, with no prefetching required and a diagnostic-quality zero footprint universal viewer for DICOM and non-DICOM images, including nuclear medicine and echocardiograms. According to Robinson, these technologies have helped reduce overall costs by avoiding the need to purchase dedicated workstations and has led to a reduction in reading times from an average of 4-5 minutes down to 1 minute.
In addition to increased productivity and reduced report TATs, Robinson believes the use of Exa’s Voice Recognition module is also enhancing the quality of the reports and reducing radiologists’ fatigue and stress. Not only are the radiologists more satisfied with their job, they have also indicated they could further increase volume. In 2017, Radiology Imaging Solutions’ radiologists read and reported 35,000 diagnostic imaging studies.
“Once we replaced our old PACS with Exa, our radiologists said they could triple their workload and not be overworked,” Robinson added. “That’s how much faster, simpler and convenient this solution is over other systems they have used. What might take two to three clicks to read a study on another system, with Exa it is one click and the study opens with their hanging protocols.”
In addition to teleradiology services, Radiology Imaging Solutions is also a dealer for Exa. Robinson shared that one customer, a Michigan healthcare provider, also implemented Exa Enterprise Imaging and its patient portal in 2017. Prior to Exa, only seven of the health system’s nearly 500 clinicians were accessing the prior systems’ portal for image viewing and sharing. Now, nearly all — 490 clinicians across multiple specialties — are using it to access patient images and records. Exa Enterprise Imaging is also being utilized to store a multitude of images, from ophthalmology to dental to diagnostic imaging, including cardiac. Robinson estimates his customer will realize significant costs savings, potentially in the millions, by centralizing all imaging and enabling remote viewing and sharing of patient data.
“As a dealer, I can tell my customers that dollar for dollar, there is no better PACS than Exa. And I know this because I not only sell Exa PACS, we use it every day in our teleradiology business,” Robinson said.
For more information: www.konicaminolta.com/medicalusa
April 22, 2024 
