Embrace Standardization in Nuclear Medicine: A Case for Improved Patient Care

Nuclear Medicine departments are essential to healthcare organizations, providing patients with specialized diagnostic and therapeutic services. Despite their critical role, these departments often struggle when using multiple disparate systems across their organization. The use of too many systems can create significant obstacles for healthcare providers, ultimately diminishing the quality of care provided to patients. These systems often sit in isolation, leading to data silos and difficulty when clinicians compare and analyze information from different organizations, cameras, and processing softwares. The need for better integration becomes even more critical in remote and mobile work environments.

Nuclear Medicine departments worldwide would benefit from adopting more integrated and streamlined systems that can better support their operations and improve patient outcomes.

Standardization in Practice

Nuclear Medicine departments often have separate software for PET/CT, SPECT/CT, Nuclear Medicine processing, and cardiac. This can make it difficult for healthcare professionals to navigate and use the software efficiently. Additionally, each camera manufacturer provides its own software with different capabilities, user interfaces, and workflows. It can be challenging to train new staff members on how to use the various systems, as they may have to learn different tool sets and processes for each one.

Similar to the issues with integration and remote work, this type of lack of standardization can negatively impact the quality of patient care. Different systems may use different methodologies for image data collection, storage, analysis, and interpretation, which can lead to inconsistencies in the information provided to referring physicians and patients. Additionally, different systems may use different protocols for calculating and reporting on administered exams, which can lead to variations in the treatment patients receive.

The Cost of Delaying

Maintaining and upgrading multiple systems is a significant burden for healthcare organizations and their IT departments. The constant need to purchase, install and upgrade systems, and the cost of training and maintenance, can significantly strain healthcare organizations' budgets.

To address these issues, healthcare organizations should consider implementing a single, integrated system for their Nuclear Medicine departments that can handle PET/CT, SPECT/CT, Nuclear Medicine, and other imaging. This will allow for greater consistency and standardization in the imaging output and improved information sharing between facilities, referring physicians, and patients. Fewer disparate systems mean a reduction in maintenance and upgrade costs. Additionally, it becomes easier to train new staff members on how to use a singular system, giving your physicians and technicians meaningful time back in their practice.

Transitioning to a new system is never easy, especially within an extensive hospital network like ours. Before implementing MIM, we used various OEM hardware and software at our different facilities. Over the past year, we have phased out those systems and replaced them with MIM. Their dedicated support team has optimized our workflows to standardize image processing and provide consistent output from every location, regardless of the camera manufacturer or technologist.”

Breece Perry | Internal Process Coordinator, Molecular Imaging at Intermountain Healthcare

If you’d like more information about bringing cost-saving standardization and globalization to your Nuclear Medicine department, contact info@mimsoftware.com or request a demo here.