Pamela Johnson, MD, FACR, Vice Chair of Quality and Safety at the Johns Hopkins Medicine Department of Radiology, Vice President of Care Transformation for the Johns Hopkins Health System, and a keynote speaker at the 2022 ACR Quality and Safety Conference, contributed this piece.
Now is the best time to evaluate your radiology facility’s operational processes and take steps toward quality improvement. Whether you’re a physician, resident, business manager, technologist or medical student, you play a very critical role in supporting these efforts, for the good of your practice and patients.
The 2022 American College of Radiology® (ACR®) Quality and Safety Conference is a great opportunity to join with like-minded colleagues across the radiological community to learn how to breathe new life into your quality improvement efforts and put your facility at the forefront of medical imaging. I’m excited to gather with several of my fellow quality and safety expert colleagues, Oct. 20–22, in Washington, DC. We hope that over the span of three impactful and interactive days, you’ll learn to:
- Align your practice operations with the latest trends in medical imaging.
- Explore new informatics and decision support solutions for optimal reporting and patient outcomes.
In September 2021, the Journal of the American College of Radiology published a focus issue on care transformation, and Yoshimi Anzai and I solicited initiatives that “harness high-quality imaging to decrease avoidable use of higher risk, higher cost healthcare resources (e.g., expensive medications, invasive procedures, emergency department visits and hospitalizations) and improve health longitudinally.” Similarly, my keynote will highlight opportunities for radiology to improve clinical effectiveness and reduce total cost of care in the ambulatory and emergency medicine settings.
Imaging stewardship remains a mission critical role for the field of diagnostic radiology. We must continue demonstrating accountability to ensure that value-based care redesign prioritizes quality, safety and patient outcomes rather than cost savings. Our unique expertise in refining imaging utilization, through development of evidence-based appropriate use criteria, clinician education, clinical decision support and provider feedback, positions us to lead evidence-based resource management optimization even beyond imaging.
See you in October, in person or virtually, for the 2022 ACR Quality and Safety Conference!
DISCLOSURE: Under a license agreement between AgileMD and the Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Pamela Johnson and the University are entitled to royalty distributions related to certain AgileMD products or technology. This arrangement has been reviewed and approved by the Johns Hopkins University in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.
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