lundi 17 septembre 2018

Barriers To Adoption Of Teleradiology Services

By Karen Butler


In today's world, teleradiology has become online and global. The information technology service industry has pioneered advancements in telemedicine that has made the concept of a global office a reality. It has provided a 24-hour workforce connected through the internet where work follows the sun. This implies we can have a radiologist offering teleradiology services to individuals working night shift in a different part of the world.

It is now possible for radiology services to be offered across countries and different time zones. This has improved patient care, especially in emergency situations. A radiologist in one country can offer a diagnosis to personnel in an emergency situation in a remote hospital in another country. The staff is then able to offer the patient the right treatment.

The development of the online e-commerce platforms has also improved the efficiency and reliability of delivering the service. Not only can a radiologist receive and send data through the platform but other processes such as billing and payment are also being done on the platform. This has greatly increased service delivery.

The delivery model has enabled the radiology services to be delivered to emergency rooms, large hospitals, and even remote clinics. A single radiologist can simultaneously offer these services to multiple hospitals during the night shift. This leads to cost-effectiveness as the need to hire night shift personnel in the remote hospitals is minimized.

Many benefits have been noted with the introduction of teleradiology. However, most hospitals are still facing challenges in adopting this great advancement thereby limiting the kind of care they are providing to the patients. Some of the challenges are technology related. The equipment being used requires a certain type of skill and not many technicians are available to offer this service. Reliable internet is also a challenge for most countries and this affected the adoption of the service in remote locations.

The current regulatory structure of most of the medical institutions also hinders the adoption of teleradiology. For example, most of the hospital boards and license requirements require a physical appointment be made when hiring a consultant to validate his or her credentials. This kind of requirement hinders the adoption of the service easily as it is challenging for consultants to visit the remote clinics.

Another challenge that has been noted is the fact that liability laws differ from country to country. This has impacted the service delivery of radiology negatively. The implications of the malpractice liability laws are not very clear where they differ. Some of the claims have also arisen from the improper use of the equipment and error in the transmission of data between the client hospitals and the radiologists.

Another obstacle that has faced the spread of the service globally is the security and confidentiality concerns that have been raised. The patient data is usually transmitted over a public network and the threat of unauthorized access to this data is present. The hospitals involved in the setup need to safeguard the information they have and have it encrypted without affecting its reliability.




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