Implementation of a Teleradiology System to Improve After-Hours Radiology Services in Kaiser Permanente Southern California

Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) has implemented a teleradiology service to provide after-hours radiology services to its 11 medical centers from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am each day of the week. Features of the service include a Web application that is used to manage the workflow associated with teleradiology exams and to provide reports of the teleradiologists' findings to referring clinicians. Currently, two teleradiologists who can be located at any KPSC facility (varies from day to day) are used to provide preliminary interpretations of CT, MRI and ultrasound exams. However, the service is scalable and could be easily reconfigured to accommodate additional teleradiologists if needed. The service also includes a quality monitoring system that tracks significant discrepancies between the teleradiologist's findings and the subsequent final report of a medical center's staff radiologist. Clinicians who utilize the teleradiology service have been highly satisfied with the responsiveness of the service-median time between performance of an exam and availability of a wet read is 19 minutes.