Imaging the South is a telemedicine pioneer, starting business in 1995 when its founder, Johnny Walker, returned from the UK.
Imaging the South is a telemedicine pioneer, starting business in 1995 when its founder, Johnny Walker, returned from the UK.
At the time, Dr Walker had become aware of advances in technology that made it possible to deliver images via computer at a resolution high enough for medical use.
Clearly, remote and regional areas were the places that could most benefit by allowing scans such as x-rays and ultrasound to be transmitted via computer for expert diagnosis.
Imaging the South was born in the South West of Western Australia, but has since expanded to service the Pilbara.
The company also offers diagnostics from a range of experts based at its headquarters in Bunbury through to Perth and even overseas in specialities across general radiography, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, and nuclear medicine services.
A network of 692 general practitioners uses the service, needing only a broadband internet to access the virtual practice, which doesn’t require expensive software. These practitioners represent more than 90 per cent of Imaging the South’s workload.
Patients have access to around 34 sites – from large regional centres to small clinics and mobile units, some set up through public private partnerships – for scans which can then be delivered electronically to specialists, such as radiologists.
The GP or other practitioner handling the case will typically have the results and assessment back at their own computer within a day without the expense or inefficiency of manual handling.
Urgent cases can now be turned around within a maximum of one hour – using specialists working in other time zones where necessary.
Imaging the South chief executive officer Angela Whittington said that, for all the efficiency of telemedicine, it was still a long haul to get all specialists to adopt the full benefits of technology.
Ms Whittington, a WA Business News 40under40 award winner in 2002, said while sending scans to specialists operating anywhere in the world saved considerable time, the industry practice of medical typists recording assessments, which required additional handling and double checking of each report, continued to hamper the delivery of results.
To speed up and streamline the process, Imaging the South wanted specialists to use voice recognition software to record the report and check it themselves, thus removing the time required for medical typists who only worked normal office hours.
Ms Whittington said it took a year to make the full transition – with many specialists reluctant to change.
“The typist was a second set of eyes and they liked that,” she said.
Imaging the South initially took a proactive approach, encouraging specialists to try out the voice recognition and making sure all had dabbled with it through more urgent cases where they could not wait for a typist to be available.
The company also had to overcome resistance from specialists who thought it was adding to their workload.
“They thought it was slower because they were not recognising the time it took to go back and forth and rereading,” Ms Whittington said.
Eventually, after 12 months of introduction and education, Imaging the South bit the bullet and removed the medical typists to ensure the transition was complete.
“They really had no choice,” she said.
Business expansion in the British Isles is next on the agenda for the Dr Walker’s group, which operates seven sites in the UK under the name Global Diagnostics.
An Irish venture could be open by the end of the year.
