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The pandemic upended every part of Asante. While everyone deserves recognition for their dedication throughout those trying times, Asante Imaging Services not only weathered the events of the past three years, it continued to meet its goals and help Asante on the path toward financial recovery.
Imaging — which comprise X-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound, echo, cath lab, PET, Women’s Imaging, and nuclear medicine across the system — is considered a key service for Asante and vital to ensuring the best patient care. As such, it falls under one of the five focus areas for Asante’s financial recovery outlined earlier this year.
One key metric, which appears on the Balanced Scorecard, is to increase the number of patients who receive a CT and MRI study within 14 days of the order.
Access to advanced imaging is critical for diagnosing and treating patients with underlying medical conditions. This measure serves as a tangible indicator of the hospital’s ability to provide efficient, patient-centered care.
Although teams are still working to achieve Asante’s year-end goal, Imaging exceeded that goal in March.
Even as the pandemic lingered, Imaging teams developed innovative ways to broaden patient access by:
- Implementing a “fast pass,” which involves sending a text to waiting patients whenever there’s a cancelation to ensure that slot is filled.
- Load-balancing among campuses to ensure patients are seen more quickly.
- Lengthening hours of service for CT and MRI tests, including evenings and weekends.
- Installing a new outpatient MRI scanner at Black Oak Medical Plaza in Medford.
- Increasing the use of direct scheduling for appointments.
These achievements involved work from across the system, including a full optimization of the Revenue Cycle pre-service workflows to ensure the financial viability of scheduled visits. Staff from Referral and Authorization, Financial Clearance and Patient Financial Advocates helped improve processes to make this happen.
“The work the Imaging and Revenue Cycle teams have done was important and mission-critical to improving Asante Imaging access for our patients, and in helping Asante become more consumer-friendly,” said Win Howard, chief administrative officer who helped spearhead the “enhancing key services” component of the recovery plan. “I truly appreciate their commitment to helping Asante not only recover from the pandemic, but to move to the next level.”
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