May 8-14 is National Hospital Week, an excellent opportunity to express gratitude to clinicians and support staff. This year, the American Hospital Association (AHA) is promoting the theme, “We are Health Care,” which recognizes the individuals who work within hospitals and health systems across the United States. Hospital leaders, health care workers, and members of the community can participate by sharing positive experiences and encouraging messages, using the hashtag #hospitalweek.
National Hospital Week is also a great time to highlight the value that your hospital brings to patients and your community—and to look for opportunities to improve on that value. This might involve bringing attention to specific services or departments within your health system, especially those that may be underused or less familiar to patients and the broader community.
For example, radiology departments and radiologists are often overlooked as members of a patient’s care team. Patients often develop longstanding relationships with specialists such as cardiologists and gynecologists, but often never even meet their radiologists. As a result, patients are less knowledgeable about the important role radiology plays in their health care. This could lead to them becoming less engaged in their care, which may have an unfortunate effect on their health outcomes.
The “invisible radiologist” situation can lead hospitals and providers to overlook the patient’s radiology experience. In the move to value-based models, it’s never a good idea to overlook the patient experience.
At Novarad, we know that supporting hospitals, empowering patients, and creating an excellent experience requires the right tools. Our fully scalable NovaPACS EI system helps you read and manage medical images faster and more efficiently, letting you focus on providing high-quality patient care. Our HIPAA-compliant CryptoChart solution lets you share patient images and reports without CDs, passwords, or portals, increasing speed while reducing frustration to encourage better outcomes