Factors Hindering The 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.

The recent advancements in information technology have made it possible for radiology services to be delivered across time zones and geographical regions. The best application of the service is through facilitating prompt responses, especially in emergency situations. This allows an off-site radiologist to offer timely diagnosis resulting to timely administration of the appropriate treatment to the patient.

E-commerce platforms have made service delivery even more efficient. Not only can a radiologist offer their service, the platforms enable the billing, work flow monitoring and payment to be automated. This has increased the efficiency and reliability of the delivery process.

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.

The confidentiality and security of the data being transmitted across the network is a major concern in the service delivery. In order to prevent unauthorized access to the information on patients, both locations need to set up adequate safeguarding measures. The information needs to be encrypted to secure the image data while also maintaining its reliability. The security measures needed are a major barrier to the adoption of the service especially in the remote locations.




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