Making the Radiology Workflow Visible in Order to Inform Optimization Strategies.

Medical imaging is undergoing rapid change, induced by the increasing amount of image data, and advances in fields such as artificial intelligence. In order for a radiology service provider to respond to these challenges, it needs to adapt its workflow. To inform optimization strategies, the way that processes and resources interact in the real world must be understood. We report on our experiences with an approach that consists of merging a variety of data sources into a data model that allows efficient interactive queries, and then providing highly interactive visualizations to explore the data. Two examples are discussed: animation of patient flow through the radiology workflow, and the use of energy consumption patterns to characterize operational modalities.