Recent News about The MED

Improvements in Radiology
Dr. Ramasubbareddy Dhanireddy, Professor of Pediatrics at UT, is proud to announce improvement in turn-around times in both performing radiology procedures and having these procedures interpreted. He credits the improvements on the efforts of everyone in the radiology department and the support of key leadership in administration, physician, and nursing staffs.

Dhanireddy chaired a process improvement (PI) committee, which was charged with shortening the time between procedures being performed after they were requested and interpreted by a radiologist once they were available.

One of the first things we discovered was the enormous number of procedures that were ordered as STAT – more than 70%. Within a couple of weeks we realized a dramatic decrease in the STAT orders – 30% of the total orders,” Dhanireddy explained.

Timelines were soon set according to how the procedures were ordered and a clarification of radiology orders were put into place. Dhanireddy explained the timelines as: “STAT orders are done within one hour of the requests and are made available to the radiologist for interpretation within 60 minutes of the testing. Urgent orders are given a four hours timeframe and routine orders have a 24 hour turn-around time.”

The PI committee meets regularly to evaluate the progress and Dhanireddy is happy to report that the compliance rate to the timelines is now 95% compared to 20-30% in August. He added, “We have been complimented by the CMS on our dramatic improvement and I want everyone to know this would not have been possible without the remarkable efforts of everyone involved – the UT physician staff, MED nursing staff, and absolutely everyone in the radiology department – particularly the Director, Judy Perkins. I would also like to acknowledge the understanding and support of leadership of both UT and The MED.”

Judy Perkins said, “I would like to thank the radiology staff for all their hard work and long hours to make these changes possible. The managers, Vernon Irvin, Tony Edwards, Melanie Taylor and Natalie Steinfeld, kept their staff informed and made sure all areas of responsibility were in compliance with the CMS standards.”

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