Actionable Findings in Radiology
What are Actionable Findings in Radiology?
Radloop fills a major gap in patient care
An actionable finding (AF) is a finding on a medical imaging report that requires further evaluation. AFs include critical findings (CF) and non-critical incidental findings (IF).
According to the ACR white paper on parameters for communication of diagnostic imaging findings:
“Critical findings suggest a need for immediate or urgent intervention.
Incidental findings are those that the interpreting physician believes are significant and unexpected, may have a reasonable probability of impacting the patients’ health, and may not require immediate attention but, if not acted on, may worsen over time and likely result in an adverse patient outcome.”
Average
%
of all exams with recommendations are lost to follow up
Up to
%
of these lost exams will be performed
Recapture Revenue from Missed Follow-ups.
The installation of Radloop provides hospitals, clinics, and clinicians with a simple solution to ensure that follow up imaging recommendations are communicated and acted upon in a timely manner thus recapturing revenue when additional otherwise lost exams are performed.
What are Critical Findings & What’s the Difference?
Critical Findings (CF) are a subcategory of Actionable Findings (AF) that suggest a need for more immediate intervention. Critical findings often require physicians to make an urgent phone call or other form of direct, non-routine contact to the ordering provider about a pathology requiring immediate intervention. The types of findings, defined as critical, are determined by an institutional committee of physicians. While important, these findings are best-handled directly clinician-to-clinician, while non-critical actionable findings often don’t have the same level of closed-loop communication and follow-up.
Radloop focuses on actionable, non-critical findings, such as incidental findings. These require diligent follow-up care, but the current systems are not set up to ensure closed-loop communication with patients and providers. The Radloop application targets these important results that are at a higher risk of falling through the cracks.
Failure to Comply.
An average of 26% of all exams with actionable recommendations are lost to follow-up. Failure to follow-up may result in poor outcomes for patients. We have a responsibility to ensure patients are aware of their findings and plan for further radiologic or non-radiologic monitoring if indicated. Early detection of disease improves patient outcomes, so we need a system that reliably notifies physicians and patients of their findings.
The Radloop Solution
Radloop Actionable Findings.
Radloop fills a major care gap in patient care. Incidental findings are managed differently than critical findings but deserve the same attention and diligence. Although not necessarily significant today, incidental findings may have a big impact on a patient’s health in the future.
Radloop’s algorithm automatically finds important incidental findings in the text of radiology reports and extracts them to ensure proper follow-up. Patients are notified of findings and scheduled for follow-up if necessary. We integrate seamlessly with EMRs and can also be accessed through our own platform. Radloop ensures reliable closure of actionable incidental findings.
Minimize Clinician Exposure & Risk using Radloop’s Actionable Findings Solution.
Radloop’s Actionable Findings (AF) solution helps reduce clinician risk by standardizing patient follow-up communication and coordinating care. Radloop’s AI captures all actionable findings and ensures recommended follow-up occurs in a timely manner. Radloop AF is HIPAA-compliant and interfaces with all major electronic health systems (EHRs). This ensures that actions are captured and documented on both the Radloop platform and in the EHR to provide medical-legal protection in the unfortunate event of an adverse patient outcome. Fundamentally, radiologists notice important findings and the Radloop AF solution ensures these findings are acted upon in a timely manner through a customized platform. “Taking better care of our patients is the best form of legal risk reduction.”
AI Automated Report Workflow.
Radloop automates many aspects of the manual process involved in flagging, communicating, and following up on actionable findings. Once a radiology report is generated by the radiologist, it is automatically fed through the Radloop AI engine. The AI analyzes the report for any actionable findings with industry-leading accuracy. These results are then presented on a real-time navigational dashboard to ensure action is taken and follow-up is complete. The custom-built workflows are flexible to accommodate as much automation as desired, allowing sites to interact with patients as they choose via letter, text, or email. As follow-up recommendations are completed, the navigational dashboard is automatically updated. This provides users the ability to focus on the recommendations requiring additional action.
Improve Radiology Report Tracking to Increase Revenue.
Radloop supports organizations to increase revenue by reducing patients lost to follow-up and facilitates care coordination via specialty/screening clinics. Thus, increasing the efficiency of patients’ access to downstream care. Timely follow-up care can be the key difference in managing a stage one versus stage four cancer. Radloop Actionable Findings application saves payors and healthcare systems revenue, reduces the risk of malpractice lawsuits, lowers malpractice premiums over time, and bolsters the reputation of the healthcare organization. Radloop AF – “Smart Solutions that Coordinate Care.”
Data Tracking for Actionable Findings in Radiology.
Radloop adheres to the highest standard of HIPAA compliance. The platform utilizes the Amazon Web Services HIPAA-compliant cloud data system and we are SOC2 Type2 certified. Interoperability between electronic health records and the Radloop platform also follows rigorous security standards. Protecting patient data is our highest priority and we are continually updating our security structures.
Next Steps for Patients.
After being informed of their actionable finding, patients are scheduled to return for further care as indicated. This care may be further radiologic imaging or other testing as needed, such as colonoscopies, cardiac catheterizations, surgical consultations, etc. The Radloop AF customizable dashboard allows systems to develop targeted clinics and efficient healthcare for patients.
Protecting Your Data.
Information Security Posture
Radloop offers customers a turnkey radiology report management solution with best-of-breed, defense in-depth security, scalability, and reliability powered by Amazon Web Services. radloop’s® web and mobile applications are deployed across AWS SOC certified, redundant datacenters. We take a defense-in-depth approach to assure customers meet HIPAA/HITECH compliance initiatives and preserve the availability, integrity and confidentiality of electronic protected health information.
Physical
Safeguards
Administrative Safeguards
Technical Safeguards
Application & Development Safeguards
Feature | radloop® |
|---|---|
| Recommendation Capture | Radiologist dictates report results as normal and without interuption. radloop® extracts recommendation automatically from the report. |
| Set Up Fees | Minimal |
| Fee | Fixed fee |
| Contract Term | Client preference |
| Committed annual report volume | No long term commitment required |
| Overage Fee | None |
| Monthly Fees | Fee based on actual volume |
| Actionable Findings | Defined by the client |
| Ordering Clinician Notification | Ordering clinicians receive notifications automatically when radloop® finds a recommendation. All care team physicians receive automatic notifications. |
| How ordering clinicians place orders for imaging | Clinician can place order directly from the radloop® phone app or into their EMR |
| How are recommendations followed up to ensure loop closure? | Clinicians & navigators work independantly or together to ensure all recommended follow ups are complete prior to loop closure. |
| Recommendation Orders captured from radiologist's report | Orders are automatically captured from recommendation. The recommended study is presented to the ordering clinician on the radloop® phone app to ensure the correct order will be placed for the patient. |
| Cost for ordering clinician to use radloop® | Free |
| Management of recommendation loop | Ordering clinician, navigator, and scheduler using a common interface |
| Physician collaboration | Clinicians can collaborate within radloop® to ensure the patient receives the best care possible. |
| Follow up letters | The navigator can send fully customized letters directly to the patient or ordering clinician. |
| Recommendation categories | Radloop® automatically categorizes the recommendations to allow the ordering clinician to organize their workflow. Emergent/critical findings as per the ACR, requires direct provider communication. |
| Dashboard Analytics | Fully functional dashboard analytics available to evaluate the success of follow up efforts |
| Security | Full HIPAA compliance. Legacy HQ security team has already performed due diligence on radloop® prior to the pilot. |
| Application Platform | Cloud-based AWS
|
| Data Benchmarking | Clients can compare their data to radloop® benchmarks to determine how well their follow up methods are working. |
| Baseline Reports | Radloop® will provide the client with baseline recommendation rates during the onboarding process |
| Quality Assurance | Radloop® continually monitors and audits the NLP engine to ensure the accuracy rate of recommendation recognition. |
| Total Cost | Low cost solution |
| Installation Time | 1 week to 3 months |
| Call Center | Users Choice |
| Navigator functionality | Full control over recommendation queues to focus on a customized filtered list of recommendation loops. Navigators can monitor the status of all recommendations to ensure that every recommendation reaches acceptable closure. |
| Critical Test | The ordering clinician can flag the exam as important/critical so they immediately receive the result on their mobile device regardless of the result or presence of a recommended follow up. |
Who does Radloop AF benefit?
Radloop benefits many important stakeholders, including radiology practices, hospital systems, outpatient clinicians, emergency rooms, health insurance companies, and most importantly patients. In addition to improving patient care, Radloop also can help to reduce malpractice risk, avoid reputational damage, bolster physician-patient relations, reduce physician burnout, and increase radiology revenue. Our platform aims to improve the whole radiology care ecosystem for physicians, patients, and other stakeholders.
Hospital
Systems
Outpatient
Radiology
Outpatient
Clinicians
ER
Departments
Why work with Radloop?
Automate MIPs Extraction.
Radloop is an industry-leading platform that represents the future of modern healthcare. We are on a mission to solve a major gap in healthcare today. We leverage the power of AI and natural language processing to improve patient care and lower the burden on our healthcare professionals. We have years of experience working with radiology practices, billing companies, insurance companies, and hospitals to implement robust interoperable communication . We integrate seamlessly with EMRs and have a dedicated, responsive team to help make Radloop the best solution for your situation. At Radloop, we are at the forefront of using healthcare data to improve patient outcomes.