The scan's read over the ocean
The doctor is in--technically. Oh, he's available, all right, but he's not in the hospital, or even within 100 miles. He's kicking back in Maui. Or maybe Sydney.
Such appealing locales are recruiting lures for outsourcers seeking radiologists who can be placed in time zones where your a.m. is their p.m. Virtual Radiologic Consultants in Minnetonka, Minn., which has one radiologist in Maui and is hiring more, is one of a growing number of outsourcers offering "nighthawk" services. Their radiologists can read CT scans and MRI s zipped over high-speed Internet connections from U.S. hospitals while the hospitals' own radiologists sleep through the night.
At 4 p.m. Sydney time, for example, a radiologist at NightHawk Radiology's center there might examine scans sent at midnight from Kellogg, Idaho, where perhaps a skateboarder has come in with head injuries. Before signing up with NightHawk, X-ray technician Karl Fletcher at the Shoshone Medical Center in Kellogg had to wake up one of his radiologists to read it. "They're more efficient during the day when they can rest at night," he says.
In business only since 2001, NightHawk is nonetheless one of the oldest radiology outsourcers. Today, it serves about 400 hospitals in 46 states from its Sydney center, where 22 radiologists examine scans and fax back reports within about 20 minutes. Typically, emergency room staff use the report to determine what they need to do immediately. The scan is re-examined for accuracy by a hospital radiologist in the morning.
Outposts. Nighthawk radiology was a response to a radiologist gap: Digital imaging technology was spreading, but there were too few specialists to read the flood of images. During the past few years, radiologists have set up outposts from India to Israel and Sydney to Switzerland. There are also many nighthawk services in the United States.
Arl van Moore, head of an American College of Radiology task force on international teleradiology, worries about providers that might not use U.S.-trained or board-certified radiologists. Then there's credentialing, licensing ("Where's the jurisdiction if the person is overseas?"), privacy, and quality.
But Leonard Berlin, chairman of the radiology department at Rush North Shore Medical Center in suburban Chicago, says he screened Nighthawk Radiology rigorously before signing up two years ago. "We were very careful to make sure that each of their readers was credentialed, board certified, and licensed to practice in the state of Illinois," says Berlin. "So what's the difference if he's sitting here in Skokie or if he's sitting in Australia?" -Rob Turner
This story appears in the August 2, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
advertisement
