Tat's For Imaging Results

[ednurse]

Our facility sends ct images via internet for an outsourced radiology outfit to read them when our radiologist is not in house (off hours, holidays, etc.). It takes any where from 1 to 3 hours for our rad tech to send the images. Does anybody else have this problem? Patients have to stay immobolized for hours. Administration gets nasty when these delays are brought up because they are promoting our "state of the art" diagnostic imaging equipment (32 slice Ct scanner) and ED physicians don't even order plain films anymore. LOS can be a guaranteed 2 to 3 hours when CT is involved. :

[schoona]

Our facility sends ct images via internet for an outsourced radiology outfit to read them when our radiologist is not in house (off hours, holidays, etc.). It takes any where from 1 to 3 hours for our rad tech to send the images. Does anybody else have this problem? Patients have to stay immobolized for hours. Administration gets nasty when these delays are brought up because they are promoting our "state of the art" diagnostic imaging equipment (32 slice Ct scanner) and ED physicians don't even order plain films anymore. LOS can be a guaranteed 2 to 3 hours when CT is involved. :

We only recently had a new CT scanner put in and now all A/H ct's are sent via the net. A verbal report usually comes through in about 30 mins and a faxed hand written report anything from 1-2hrs - painful at times. Whilst our Ed consultant (if on A/H which is rare) will make a descision after viewing scans, no one else will.

Out of interest do you remember pre CT's when doctors made descisions based on clinical findings???

[suzanne4, RN]

Not sure that you are aware that many scans from the US are being sent to India, Australia, Pakistan, etc. to be read via the internet. The physicians there are actually also licensed in the US, so there is no problem getting around any government rulings. I think that you are going to start seeing this more frequently, especially off shift in smaller facilities.