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Technology to boost the performance of radiology departments is now being used by Trusts across the NHS to reduce delays and improve patient outcomes. West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospital NHS Trust says that the software, developed by the radiology technology company Hexarad, could be transformative for cutting scan waiting times and ensuring patients get treated as soon as possible.
Dr Nina Breunung-Joshi, Clinical Director Radiology at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, comments: “Like NHS Trusts all over the country, one of our top priorities is getting patients seen and the results of their scans as quickly as possible and prioritising reports, but workforce shortages and the rising demand for scans is making this increasingly difficult. An efficient and user-friendly tool for capacity forecasting, list scheduling, cover of acute services and scan allocation can really speed things up and reduce delays and improve patient outcomes and safety, as these tasks take up valuable clinical and administrative time.
“We’re now working with the radiology technology company Hexarad, and their OptiRad technology is working across our whole radiology department to find efficiencies, improve our performance and enable demand and capacity planning, as well as identify any rota gaps in the acute service for short term cover. We’re looking forward to seeing the results of our partnership with Hexarad as we feel that this technology could be transformative.”
Radiology services are under unprecedented strain across the NHS. According to the latest Royal College of Radiologists census, published last week, the NHS has a 30% shortfall of clinical radiologists. 97% of clinical directors say that the radiologist workforce crisis is causing backlogs and delays at their trust/health board, and 91% of clinical directors said that workforce shortages are impacting patient safety. In 2023, 745,000 patients in England waited over four weeks to receive the result of their imaging test following the scan.
Hexarad’s OptiRad technology is a cloud-based software tool that eliminates unnecessary radiology delays by optimising how a radiology department works. This includes forecasting capacity, delivering performance analytics, and performing key administration tasks that would otherwise have to be done by a radiologist. For example, Hexarad can process and allocate hundreds of scans in minutes, cutting down the time it takes to allocate a scan to a radiologist by approximately 90%.
Corey Frazer, ex. NHS Radiology Clinical Services Manager and Head of Clinical Systems at Hexarad, says: “In some departments I have worked in it would be a full day’s work a week just to allocate scans. The OptiRad auto-allocation tool is brilliant because it can automatically assign around 80% of a department’s scans to the most appropriate radiologist – this cuts down the admin burden and it also speeds up reporting because the scan is going to the right person straight away.”
NHS Trusts across the UK are now using Hexarad’s technology to reduce delays and improve their radiology services. Hexarad won Silver at the 2024 HSJ Partnership Awards for a project with North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust to improve out-of-hours radiology services and cut A&E delays. The overall time saved from using Hexarad’s technology platform for out-of-hours radiology is equivalent to one extra clinician per shift in a ten-doctor department. To achieve this same outcome, a hospital would need to spend £365,000 per annum on locum agency fees.
