Radiological Associates of Sacramento Medical Group
Online Solutions Take Away Access Pains in Radiology
Just What the Doctor Ordered!
- Radiological Associates of Sacramento Medical Group, Inc. (RAS) the largest private radiology practice in Northern California.
- Radiological Associates is a professional corporation of more than 600 employees within three divisions. The RAS network includes 16 facilities.
- Physician owned and operated, the group is comprised of a wide range of subspecialty—trained radiologists and radiation oncologists.
- RAS implemented the Schedule Maximizer solution to its network of Diagnostic Imaging, Nuclear Medicine, Radiation Oncology, and Medical Management services in fall 2004. They have been live with the Orders Facilitator solution since 2006.
The Pioneer
The founder of Radiological Associates, Dr. Harold Zimmerman, came to Sacramento with this area’s first x-ray machine in 1917, a time when radiology was in its infancy. As Dr. Zimmerman’s practice grew over the years, additional radiologists joined him. Many new diagnostic and therapeutic radiology techniques were pioneered by this group, and it quickly became recognized as the outstanding radiology practice in the Sacramento Valley with bold and imaginative services. In 1947, the Radiation Oncology Centers of Sutter Hospital was opened, with the first million-volt therapeutic x-ray machine west of the Mississippi.
RAS is no stranger to delivering excellent patient care by employing advanced technology.
Throughout its history, Radiological Associates has introduced important new radiological methods to the Sacramento community, including:
- state-of-the-art megavoltage radiation therapy
- diagnostic ultrasound
- lymphangiography
- CT scanning
- full service neuroradiology
- catheter angiography
- computerized nuclear medicine procedures including Positron Emission Tomography
The Story
As early at 1990, RAS began exploring opportunities to improve how they scheduled patients for procedures. At the onset of the new millennium a RAS board member made an observation that would drive the customer service vision for their growing network of imaging centers. “Why can I book available travel and accommodations anywhere in the world without leaving my computer desk? Couldn’t we embrace the power and convenience of the web to schedule our patients in the available appointments times throughout our facilities?”
With the question posed, the task at hand was to find an answer. The answer came in the form of a revolutionary IT solution using the web as a platform from which to unify function and flexibility. Schedule Maximizer.
“We weren’t just trying to find a centralized scheduling system,” reflects Roy. “We needed an information technology partner that would launch our efforts to completely overhaul scheduling. That included operations, human resources, the physical plant, and the scheduling solution of choice.”
“We met with (SCI Solutions) in 2002 and said make it work for us in these ways and we’ll consider your product.”
“We formed a task force comprised of referring physicians.
This group told us in no uncertain terms what the existing problem were in our scheduling
processes. We knew about most of them from physician satisfaction surveys and ongoing physician
feedback. We had physicians who said they would never use us because the patient
stayed on hold for 45 minutes. That needed to change.”
The task forces comprised of referring physicians tested Schedule Maximizer and two
larger competitors offering scheduling systems in conjunction with a wide array of
other unrelated solutions. “(SCI) was focused solely on access management. They took
the upgrade requests to the table and incorporated them into the solution.
“We partnered with SCI, implemented Schedule Maximizer with relative ease, and used it as a launch pad for global scheduling improvements. Scheduling is our front door. If we fail here, the patient’s perception is that we’ve failed in all aspects of their care.”
“We expanded and hired people with higher skill sets. We provided the schedulers with all the tools of the trade to make their job easy. We upgraded space. We mapped out the processes and plotted where inefficiencies existed. We unified our facilities under one phone system that would roll over to an open scheduler at any facility and avoid lengthy on hold times.”
“At some point I think we ought to consider extending the hours further and letting the schedulers work from home. Much like transcriptionists they could do inputting and patient education follow up at home. We would open the pool of talent, increase employee satisfaction, and leverage the web-based Schedule Maximizer system through virtual work spaces. But, that is for another day and another discussion…”
RAS has also enhanced patient access and referring physician satisfaction by automating their physician order management with SCI’s Order Facilitator. The ease and convenience of Order Facilitator’s web-based product, has been a good fit for a number of the offices that are not efficiently handling their orders.
“SCI Order Facilitator has streamlined our orders workflow, increased provider and patient satisfaction and reduced operational delays.”
Mary G.
Manager Centralized Scheduling
Baptist Health Care
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