Saturday, May 19, 2007

Outsourcing raises concerns over quality control

Many X-rays at Carilion Clinic hospitals are being interpreted over the Internet by physicians outside of Roanoke because the valley's largest group of radiology doctors moved most of their practice to Lewis-Gale Medical Center in March.

Carilion has hired some temporary radiologists to read X-ray images and has increased the use of an outsource radiology service for both daylight and nighttime readings.

For doctors changing hospitals, the goal is to keep their businesses independent. For patients, the issues are medical care and where they receive it.

For most of March, after Radiology Associates severed most of its ties that had existed with Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital for nearly six decades, the medical community buzzed about slow turnaround times and questionable readings on many types of radiology scans.

Emergency X-rays, as well as inpatient and outpatient images, weren't functioning the same as before, several doctors said.

read source article here

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