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2019 Month : July Volume : 8 Issue : 27 Page : 2154-2158

TELERADIOLOGY- EASY ACCESSIBILITY OF RADIOLOGICAL SERVICES FOR DIAGNOSIS- OUR EXPERIENCE.

Murali Belman1, Mandapal Toka2, Nagendra Thanugondra Raghupathi3, Prasad S. G.4, Arun Kumar A5, Venkatakrishna Satram6, Bhavan Kumar M7, Sandilya Biruduraju8

Corresponding Author:
Dr. Murali Belman,
#702 A, Road No. 36,
Jubliee Hills, Hyderabad-500033, Telangana, India.
E-mail: drbelmanmurali@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND

Diagnostic imaging is one of the most revolutionary innovations in the medical world. It has revolutionized how physicians and patients view health and diseases. However, the dearth of radiologists to read these images has been an impending problem worldwide. Digitization of medical images in standard Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) format and the seamless integration of imaging modalities through the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) has enabled easy acquisition and transfer of images across networks for viewing, enabling the teleradiology platform for reporting by radiologists from anywhere. CARE was one of the first to adopt this technology through a public private partnership model with district hospital, Mahabubnagar in 2001. Over the last 18 years, we are connected to district hospitals, private centres across India, small sized hospitals and also to some international diagnostic centres in Nigeria and Iraq. This paper highlights our experiences in Teleradiology across district hospitals, private centres and international centres and also showcases the turnaround time for reporting routine and emergency cases through this mode of technology.

METHODS

All imaging modalities namely computed radiography (CR), computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that were used are DICOM compliant. These machines were seamlessly integrated and configured adhering to the DICOM protocol to push images through DICOM gateway service to receive images according to set predefined standards. The PACS server had MS SQL database to host all the patient demographics along with history for each case and all images were archived based on a file system architecture. Virtual assistants help radiologists by transcribing the report online, after which another team scrutinizes for quality assurance of the reports transcribed before finally signing off the report.

RESULTS

Teleradiology network was established with 3 district hospitals (Mahabubnagar, Tandur and Nalgonda), 9 private centres (Balaji Diagnostic Centre, Matrix Hospital, Holistic Hospital, Prime Hospital, KRSNA, KIMS, Archana, Sahasra, Kiran) and 2 international centres (Mecure Diagnostic Centre, Nigeria, Medya Diagnostic Centre-Iraq). More than 1,00,000 cases have been reported using this platform. The average turnaround time for routine cases was between 4-6 hours and for all emergency cases it was between 10-30 minutes.

CONCLUSIONS

In our experience, we found Teleradiology to be an effective methodology of reporting especially if virtual assistants are used in the reporting process, thereby optimizing the radiologist time. The turnaround time for cases significantly improved especially for emergency cases.

KEY WORDS

DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine), PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System), MBNR (Dist. Hospital Mahbubnagar), TNDR (Dist. Hospital Tandur), CR (Computed Radiography), CT (Computed Tomography), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), Bandwidth, Turnaround Time, Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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