Virtual Radiologic Corporation

Company: Virtual Radiologic Corporation
Company Description: Virtual Radiologic is a leading provider of teleradiology services and technology solutions. Founded by radiologists in 2001, vRad utilizes market-leading, proprietary workflow technology to enable its 140 radiologists to perform 2.6 million high quality interpretations annually, with an average turnaround time of less than 20 minutes, for more than 1,150 medical facilities across the U.S.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Use of Technology in Customer Service

Nomination Title: Virtual Radiologic Utilizes Innovative Technology to Deliver Real-Time Customer Service

Tell the story about how technology has improved your customer service initiatives since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

It’s 8 p.m. on the West Coast and Dr. Phil Benedetti, radiologist for Virtual
Radiologic (vRad), begins his 10-hour shift from home in Oregon.; He starts
with a brain trauma case sent via the Internet from Three Rivers Hospital in
Waverly, TN (population 5,000). Dr. Benedetti views more than two hundred high-
resolution CT images and discovers an abnormality.; He quickly reports back to
the hospital emergency department that the patient needs emergency surgery to
remove a blood clot that is applying pressure on the patient’s brain.; Total
turnaround time:; 15 minutes.

vRad’s customer service team, the Operations Center (OC), facilitates this
process.; It’s the hub that allows vRad to deliver clients (radiology groups
and hospitals) over 2.5m high quality radiologic interpretations a year with
average turnaround times less than 20 minutes. Quality reports delivered
quickly is crucial for our clients to maximize patient outcomes and increase
emergency department throughput.

On an average night the 20-member OC facilitates almost 7,000 interpretations -
;processing 1 million images received from 1,150 hospitals and coordinating 65
radiologists.; It will coordinate over 400 positive/ critical finding calls
from vRad radiologists to hospitals, and process 500+ customer service
requests from ER doctors/nurses, radiology technologists, hospital IT staff
and other medically trained personnel.
;
The OC’s success is made possible through use of both everyday technology,
such as secure and encrypted instant messenger, and advanced proprietarily
developed technology.

Since speed is crucial and vRad needs to process images from 7,400 different
imaging devices, it developed its own radiologic information system (RIS) that
tracks, dictates and reports patient information back to client hospitals.;
Developing a RIS in-house instead of using an off-the-shelf commercial version
allows vRad to quickly adjust and improve the system in ways that are crucial
to quick turnaround times.

For example, with the click of a button within vRad RIS, a vRad radiologist
alerts the OC that a critical finding needs to be communicated, the OC team
then quickly contacts the referring doctor from the client hospital.; Usually
within 5 minutes, the OC has the radiologists on the phone with the client.;

The proprietary RIS is crucial to the turnaround times we provide customers
since it load balances radiologic cases amongst radiologists by automatically
assigning cases to the appropriate radiologist based on factors such as
facility credentials, modality, type of study, subspecialty expertise and
number of cases on a radiologist’s worklist.;

Our RIS, which was developed with feedback from clients, also includes a
client portal for administration, reporting and invoice data.; A unique “click-
to-chat” feature – an alternate communication method for busy client radiology
technologists who are not near phones and need to communicate with the OC
without leaving their workstation - is available 24/7 365 days a year.; With
the dedicated OC focused on supporting “click to chat”, response times are
instantaneous!

Ultimately, vRad is providing real-time patient care and innovative
utilization of technology in the OC ensures quality radiologic reports are
delivered quickly to our clients, and any client issues/requests are dealt
with immediately.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=820385&catid=391
http://www.virtualrad.com/media/pdfs/Press%20Releases/2009/vRad%20Press%20Release%20January%208%202009.pdf

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated customer service organization:

Raul Ruiz is director of Virtual Radiologic’s Operations Center. He has spent
over 15 years enhancing contact center environments and has experience with a
wide variety of contact center technologic systems and workflow processes.;
Prior to joining vRad in 2007, he served as the lead manager of premium
services for a charter airline. He also spent seven years with ValueVision
Media/ShopNBC and Damark International, where he held leadership roles in the
contact center.; By introducing technological improvements such as IVR and CTI
integration solutions, he enhanced the customer experience while realizing
cost efficiencies.