Collaboration between radiologists and specialists plays a key role in patient care. When effective, this collaboration reduces diagnosis times, reduces the risk of errors, and increases the quality of care. However, communication and coordination between healthcare providers are often hampered by the lack of adequate processes and tools.
How can we overcome these challenges and facilitate collaboration between medical imaging professionals and specialists within healthcare facilities?
What tools can be used to facilitate collaboration between radiologists and specialists?
Coordination between radiologists and specialists is closely linked to the communication tools used. Written reports and emails can sometimes be misplaced, lack context, or contain errors. PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) and cloud-based imaging solutions provide healthcare professionals with fast and secure access to all radiological data, which are centralized on a single platform. Accessible from any terminal and workplace, they thus avoid problems related to the sending, sorting, and storage of medical correspondence.
In addition, patients’ electronic medical records can also be included in some PACSs, meaning radiological images can be contextualized in relation to a patient’s medical history. Images and reports can also be shared directly with specialists through these platforms, via secure messaging features.
In addition, some institutions use online communication and collaboration platforms, such as health portals. These are used to centralize patient data from multiple medical applications and promote interaction between healthcare personnel.
Finally, artificial intelligence is used in radiology to identify important clinical signs and detect subtle details. It gives radiologists the opportunity to provide more comprehensive and detailed reports, allowing specialists to make informed decisions about the treatments to be provided.
Best practices for successful medical collaboration
The interoperability of the medical systems and applications used by radiologists and other departments is a crucial element for collaboration. Adopting interoperable tools greatly facilitates data accessibility and sharing for healthcare professionals.
Of course, it is not enough to simply provide tools adapted to the collaborative problems of medical professionals. It is also necessary to train specialists on these tools, so that each collaboration feature can be understood and used effectively.
Beyond digital tools, it is important to establish a culture of collaboration within healthcare institutions, for example by organizing multidisciplinary team meetings. These meetings allow the various specialists to discuss a patient’s situation, the treatments to be adopted, and the risks involved. Decision-making is therefore done as a team and based on multidisciplinary expertise to provide optimal care.
The impact of collaboration on patient care
The benefits of collaboration between medical professionals for patient care require no arguing. In 2019, a study initiated by Harvard University showed that the proportion of correct diagnoses issued by groups of physicians was 85%, compared with 62.5% for diagnoses issued individually 1 . For example, while CT and MRI scans allow radiologists to identify brain lesions, working with a neurologist increases the possibility of diagnosing rare neurocognitive disorders such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease.
This collaboration improves the patient’s experience: the different professionals have the same level of information, and the patient has a better understanding of their situation, meaning they can be treated more quickly and recover as soon as possible.
Efficient collaboration between radiologists and specialists significantly increases the quality of patient care. This collaboration is based on digital tools for sharing information, but also on well-defined processes and a culture of teamwork to serve patients.
1 https://www.thema-radiologie.fr/actualites/3641/cancer-de-l-ovaire-les-avantages-du-compte-rendu-synoptique-pour-les-patientes.html
