Diagnostics Services Help Healthcare Providers Boost Productivity

Eastman Kodak Co.'s Health Group (Rochester, NY, USA) recently launched Kodak Business Diagnostics Services, focused consulting services that enable healthcare facilities to deliver improved productivity, dramatic revenue gains, and reduced waste when implementing new digital imaging technologies, including picture archiving and communications systems (PACS).

"Industry consultants report more than half of facilities that installed PACS over the last three years have not realized projected productivity and revenue gains,” said Diana Nole, general manager, Business Strategy, Product Management and Marketing, Kodak's Health Group. "This indicates the need for consulting services like Kodak Business Diagnostic Services that target inefficiencies and identify process improvements not only within the radiology department, but also in the delivery of imaging services to clinicians, staff, and other users.”

As part of this new service, Kodak engineers will gather performance and productivity data through analysis of a healthcare provider's environment and compare these statistics to similar facilities within a proprietary national database of more than 200 healthcare institutions. The Kodak team will then use lean-methodology processes to make recommendations to help improve performance.

Healthcare facilities can contract for this service as part of a digital conversion or after digital technologies have been installed. These services are provided independently and do not require the purchase of Kodak products and systems.

"We anticipate the improvement in our processes will generate close to [US]$200,000 in additional revenue annually,” reported Christine Wilson, Panorama's CIO. "We're treating more patients each day without having to compromise the quality of care each patient receives. Also, the streamlined workflow requires fewer staff, so we can keep our overhead in check by reassigning employees rather than adding new ones as we grow. Our changes have resulted in greater patient, physician, and employee satisfaction.”

Panorama had been using computed radiography systems for a long time, but needed to redesign some of their processes to achieve the desired business outcomes. "The process methodology used in Kodak's Business Diagnostics Services helped our staff determine what needed to be changed in order to meet our goals. We will continue to use what we've learned as we move forward,” Mr. Wilson said.



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