A consultant radiologist at Paul Strickland Scanner Centre has received an award for “going above and beyond” during Covid-19 by playing a key role in a project to make remote reporting of scans a reality at the centre.
A consultant radiologist at Paul Strickland Scanner Centre has received an award for “going above and beyond” during Covid-19 by playing a key role in a project to make remote reporting of scans a reality at the centre.
The project helped to ensure we were able to maintain our clinical excellence as well as patient and staff safety, ensuring that the disruption to radiology service caused by the pandemic was minimal. This meant we could continue working as before in line with our mission to maintain the highest levels of patient and referrer satisfaction. The Association of Healthcare Technology Providers for Imaging, Radiotherapy and Care (AXREM) provided Dr Andrew Gogbashian, Lead Consultant for CT at Paul Strickland Scanner Centre, with a Highly Commended award as a result. The virtual awards ceremony, hosted by veteran broadcaster and prostate cancer patient Bill Turnbull, took place during the 2021 Imaging & Oncology Congress (UKIO), the largest multidisciplinary imaging and oncology conference in the UK.
‘We were able to maintain our clinical excellence as well as patient and staff safety’
The event celebrated those in the radiotherapy and imaging industry who make personal sacrifices and go beyond what is expected of them on a daily basis in both the private sector and NHS.
Dr Gogbashian said: “We urgently investigated the possibility of remote reporting in March 2020 because of Government guidance at the time regarding home working. It was also clear that due to social distancing requirements our radiologists couldn’t sit in the reporting room together as before, and this spurred us to get remote reporting set up.
“We moved quickly and put the solution in place very rapidly. It was a very challenging project to deliver so quickly. “One of the challenges we faced was the difficulty of sourcing IT equipment in March 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
“We worked with the company MITIS Health to set up remote reporting at the Centre, which involved amongst other things upgrading our systems and creating a new virtual server which allowed our radiologists to securely view scan images from home, in line with the advice offered by the Royal College of Radiologists.
“We’re very pleased that we had remote reporting up and running by April 2020, with further work carried out during the rest of the year to upgrade the project.
“It enabled us to utilise our full radiology workforce, including those staff members who were shielding due to health conditions. “Our team of radiologists have followed a hybrid working pattern ever since, with limited time in the office in order to support frontline staff. This gives our radiologists flexibility and increases scalability of our radiology operation.”
