Moving past the initial media hype, practitioners are beginning to demonstrate how AI applications can enhance the ability of radiologists to support better patient outcomes.

A growing number of health organizations are making computed tomographic perfusion (CTP) a critical part of their stroke intervention protocols.

As the CIO of Radiology at MEDNAX and vRad, I cannot help but reflect on the history of imaging informatics – and look ahead to the future innovations that emerging technology will bring.

The DAWN Trials, among others, support positive results for stroke patients who first receive treatment up to 24 hours after symptom onset. Current guidelines that require treatment within 6 hours or less limit clinicians’ treatment options for stroke patients when initial signs may have gone unobserved, or when the patient may have been delayed in getting to the ER. Emerging guidelines are opening a much larger window of opportunity through which we can properly diagnose and treat stroke victims.

Today we have the capability—unparalleled in human history—to compile enormous amounts of information, then apply sophisticated analytic tools and artificial intelligence to help solve patients’ most vexing difficulties. Managing big data is essential to building specialized centers of excellence, and diagnostic imaging is a vital part of their success.

As a 24/7/365 radiology company, vRad’s technology is the backbone of everything we do. In order to deliver patient care, our client facilities must be able to communicate with our servers – and for us, that’s every day, every night, every weekend, every holiday… you get the picture.

Through CGI (computer-generated imagery), the folks at Pixar – creators of Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Monsters, Inc. – allow audiences to explore and experience incredible worlds of perceptible dimension, nuanced shading and subtle detail. 

Welcome back to the vRad technology quest as we unlock the 7^th and final key!

As always, I recommend you check out the first post in the series if you’re interested in the topics I’ve covered thus far.

Today we’ll discuss how we perform scheduled maintenance on our highly available (24/7/365) platform and our process for minimizing or eliminating disruptions when short notice changes are necessary.

Let’s get to it.

We have a large team of engineers and developers who create, maintain and enhance our proprietary technology systems.  We’re proud of our team and the work that they do, in fact, we have an entire blog series dedicated to their efforts: Technology Quest.

Diversity is important to vRad and we know first-hand that hiring female coders is difficult: there simply aren’t as many applicants.