New Mammography Paperless Workflow

Updates to the workflow and forms have improved Mammography. Mammography screening takes place at several remote sites (Shrewsbury, Hahnemann, Barre and Tri-River) in the UMass System then the scans are read by Radiologists at the Memorial Campus. While the scans are available online the paperwork was transported by courier which caused back-ups and unread screens. Ginny Rollins, Forrest Knestrick, and Linda Egan with assistance from Mike McMurray, Linda Anderson and Division Chief, Gopal Vijayaraghavan, MD created a new paperless workflow to expedite the process and make it more efficient. The first step was to modify the forms so it included all of the needed information on one exam form. Then make the form ready to include in RIS.

The form prints when the patient arrives to the department so there is no waste if the patient does not show. Only 2 exam labels print for Diagnostic PatientsandScreening Patients do not get any exam labels. Upon completion of a patient’s mammogram, the technologist scans the exam/follow up form into RIS. Screening mammograms can now be read by any Radiologist at any site. This has significantly increased the turnaround time. Most often they are read within a day. This process keeps the workflow continuous with minimal open appointments and allows the staff to better serve our mammography patients.

Overall benefit of this new paperless workflow:

• Drastic reduction in the use of paper, labels & ink ribbons.
• Better utilization of Clerical staff due to elimination of paper workflow
• Cost reduction by not having to utilize Radiologists reading screens on the weekends.
• Increase in patient turnaround times, which directly impacts the patient’s anxiety level.
• Decrease in open slots due to unread screening mammograms, which directly impacted unnecessary downtimes and better utilization of staff.

Thanks to all who helped developed and streamlined this new paperless workflow for Mammography.