Network Radiology Without Boundaries
Learn how to power your teleradiology network with Enterprise Imaging solutions from AGFA HealthCare
RSNA News presents this sponsored Industry Focus article.
As radiology practices expand across multiple hospitals and regions, uneven workloads, rising imaging volumes and ongoing staffing shortages continue to strain teams. Network-based teleradiology is emerging as an effective way to redistribute work, preserve subspecialty expertise and reduce the daily workflow friction that contributes to radiologist burnout.
“While the U.S. averages roughly 13 radiologists per 100,000 people, distribution is highly uneven,” said Charles Morris, enterprise imaging strategic marketing director for AGFA HealthCare. “Some states have fewer than nine radiologists per 100,000 residents; others have more than double that density. This imbalance is increasingly pushing health systems toward network-based models to maintain coverage.”
As health systems consolidate and radiology groups expand coverage, many find that traditional PACS architectures are not adequately designed for the scale or cross-enterprise collaboration modern radiology networks require.
Balancing Workloads Across Networks
“Legacy systems were built for a single locale,” Morris said. “They weren’t built for practices where radiologists are dispersed and work needs to flow far and wide.”
Network radiology centralizes work assignments while allowing studies to be read anywhere. Instead of routing images between PACS or managing multiple worklists, enterprise imaging platforms use workflow orchestration and high-performance streaming to deliver studies directly to the most appropriate radiologists.
“One of the biggest inefficiencies today is the time radiologists spend figuring out what they should be reading,” Morris said. “Orchestration removes that burden and assigns work automatically.”
Kyle Souligne, AGFA’s strategic director of marketing and business, works closely with organizations adopting network-based models and said these environments help level out the peaks and valleys that create fatigue.
“In traditional coverage models, staffing is built around the highest demand hours within a single system. In a network, those peaks rarely occur simultaneously,” Souligne said. “Connecting environments naturally balances volume and subspecialists can remain focused on the exams they’re best trained to interpret. That consistency benefits both radiologists and patients.”
“Radiologists are already overworked. Our goal is not just to get more work done, but to improve their quality of life at work.”
— CHARLES MORRIS
A core technology behind this model is high performance streaming, which keeps data at its originating site while delivering pixels securely to the radiologist.
“We’re not sending studies to the radiologist,” Morris said. “We leave the data where it’s created and stream it to where it’s needed.”
For radiologists, that means faster access to images, a consistent reading environment and less cognitive load. Subspecialists are more likely to remain focused on their areas of expertise, even as volumes fluctuate across sites.
“A modern streaming client provides a fully functional, blazing-fast environment, whether you’re in a hospital, at home or halfway across the world,” Souligne explained.
Streaming and orchestration combined greatly minimize IT strain by reducing the need to manage locally installed software or move large volumes of data between PACS environments.
As imaging demand continues to rise, Morris and Souligne emphasized that network radiology is ultimately about sustainability.
“Radiologists are already overworked,” Morris said. “Our goal is not just to get more work done, but to improve their quality of life at work.”
Souligne added, “Organizations planning for the future should ask: What do we want to be in the business of? Modern platform vendors support ease of growth and allow radiologists to focus on the work that matters most.”