Innovation that matters to you

The Impact of Value-Based Care

Radiology, along with almost every aspect of health care, has been forced to adapt and evolve as hospital systems focus on becoming more efficient in the face of value-based care. Everyone from patients, payers and regulators are exerting pressure on hospitals to cut costs and provide more cost-effective care. With advanced digital technology in place, radiology will break free from its reputation as a cost-center and be a key component of cost reduction strategies. But that doesn’t mean that the quality of service will diminish. In fact, the same changes that can lead to lower costs can also result in better care for both practitioners and patients.

By far the most compelling trend I heard from customers was the need for a fully integrated, consultative approach to enhance radiology practice management. Radiology is sitting on vast amounts of operational data that is not being used to its full potential. The future of imaging depends on the seamless integration between data and insights across multiple modalities and systems. To provide value-based care, radiologists are asking for customized, data-driven management approaches that combine imaging with services, informatics and analytics to improve care delivery and reduce costs. They can’t afford to work in silos, rather, they want the critical data insights needed to transform care practices to be more efficient, shaping operational performance across the entire healthcare network.

Value-based care requires not only first time right imaging, but the ability to unify data and unlock actionable insights to help influence and improve radiology practice management. With improved early diagnosis, radiologists are able to reduce the need for repeat imaging and callbacks, further improving patient comfort and ultimately realizing the correlation between happy patients and lower cost of care.

Technology has already helped us shift the perception of radiology as a critical piece of the connected health system that enables quick and accurate diagnosis regardless of the disease state. While perception is changing, we all know there is still work to be done. However, if we focus on improving the way radiologists are able to examine patients and allow them to use and share data seamlessly, the sky is the limit. I look forward to next year’s RSNA to see how far we’ve come.