Health Care Innovation Awards: Imaging Advantage LLC Project Profile

Project Title: "The right exam, at the right time, read by the right radiologist"
Geographic Reach: Illinois
Funding Amount: $5,977,805
Estimated 3-Year Savings: $14,935,320

Summary

The goal of the Project is to further the goals of better care for individuals, better health for populations and reduced costs through improvements in care by reengineering the hospital-based radiology service delivery model at Vanguard Health Chicago ("VHC"), a four-hospital system in Chicago, Illinois, for which Imaging Advantage is the exclusive provider of radiology services system-wide. To achieve this goal, at VHC, Imaging Advantage will, among other steps:
 

A. Develop and deploy a suite of proprietary "front-end" referring physician decision-support tools designed to reduce or eliminate duplicative and/or clinically unnecessary radiology exams and, in the process, reduce CMS' costs and patients' cumulative radiation dosage exposures;

B. Implement a comprehensive total quality management ("TQM") program, including Imaging Advantage's proprietary RealTime QAĂ‚ ® program, one of the only proactive quality assurance programs in the country. The RealTime QAĂ‚ ® program applies double-blind reads to high-difficulty radiology exams before the patient is treated, forcing better patient-care outcomes and reducing risks (and costs) of patient readmission;

C. Eliminate "wet" or preliminary reads practices in VHC's emergency departments, including reads by non-radiologists, in all instances where preliminary reads are not clinically advisable; and

D. Produce material improvements in VHC's final-report turnaround time, widely regarded as the significant limiting factor in hospital efficiency and cost control.

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