Radiology by Night

New service reduces turnaround time, length of stay

Physicians in the Department of Radiology know trauma and emergency services don’t fit conveniently into a 9-to-5 shift.

That’s why a new team of radiologists are here from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

At a time when many academic medical centers rely on residents for night work and other large hospitals hire private, out-of-state firms to handle after-hours needs, the University of Mississippi Medical Center is among a small number of academic institutions with an overnight emergency radiology section, said Dr. Timothy McCowan, radiology chairman. The service launched in March with Dr. Erick Blaudeau as chief of emergency radiology.

Blaudeau, associate professor of radiology, joined the Medical Center in March and works with Dr. John Faust, assistant professor of radiology. Dr. Jim Coleman, a senior resident in radiology, will join the section in July, and McCowan said he is in the process of recruiting a fourth physician.

“Radiology is a vital part of patient care. Just about every patient gets an x-ray or CT scan. It’s a critical part of their diagnosis, and patients need our care 24-7,” McCowan said. “This is what we should be doing as an academic medical center and a level 1 trauma center.”

The benefits extend beyond patient care. The emergency radiologists oversee residents, provide timely results to emergency room physicians, interact directly with patients and treating physicians, and expand the Medical Center’s reach to community hospitals needing consultation.

They also handle cases as they come, allowing day faculty to begin work on current cases instead of catching up with what happened overnight.

“The initial response to this service has been incredible,” McCowan said. “We’re creating a whole new section of radiology and we’re very fortunate to have an experienced radiologist to lead that area.”

Before joining the Medical Center, Blaudeau served as senior staff radiologist in the Emergency Radiology Section at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit from 2006-09, where there were 15 emergency radiologists on staff. He said patient flow can be improved through the section’s work.

“In the past, for a complicated case, a patient might have been held in the ER until a final interpretation on a CT scan was obtained the following morning. By providing final interpretations more quickly, for most emergency-imaging studies performed overnight, we hope to reduce ER waiting and turnaround times,” Blaudeau said.

We can also reduce in-patient length of stay. Sometimes patients are waiting on a radiology report to be discharged, and we can give that report right away instead of waiting until the morning.”

Blaudeau received the B.S. from Birmingham Southern College in 1988 and the M.D. from the University of Alabama School of Medicine in 1992. He completed an internship in internal medicine at Louisiana State University in 1993 and residency training in diagnostic radiology at the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans in 1997, where he was also chief resident in 1995.

A board-certified radiologist, Blaudeau was the director of emergency radiology at the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans from 1997-2004. He rose from assistant professor to associate professor of clinical radiology at the LSU Health Sciences Center, where he was assistant clinical director in the Department of Radiology from 2004-06.

A strong advocate of student education, Blaudeau would like to work with medical students on how to read x-rays, even if they don’t choose a career in radiology.

Mccowand would probably like it if a student chose to specialize in radiology. He said there’s a nationwide shortage of radiologists, which is part of the reason why medical centers have relied heavily on residents for night shifts. Private companies have been formed to address the problem, charging hospitals for radiology coverage at night by reading scans electronically.

“I believe radiology is better when integrated in the whole care of the patient, particularly when delivered via the local environment,” McCowan said. “Someone trying to provide services from out of state has limited access to medical information, limited access to clinicians treating the patient and no knowledge of the institution."

The redesign of the Medical Center’s emergency room includes a radiology reading room, keeping the emergency radiologists in close contact with colleagues.

-Patrice Sawyer Guilfoyle

2009-04-27 00:00:00 3525