Strategic Radiology is just scratching the surface on our data aggregation projects. Today we aggregate revenue cycle data, financial data, physician productivity data. Now we are beginning to aggregate clinical data in an effort to automate quality reporting.

The most valuable aspect has been the collegiality and interaction with physicians and administrators from the other groups. We learn from them, we discuss difficult issues with them—administrative, patient care, business issues—and how we can improve all of our groups working together.

Immediately on association with Strategic Radiology, we were able to achieve discounts through group purchasing. Not only can we save money above our membership fees in Strategic Radiology, but we also are able to leverage the combined expertise of the Strategic Radiology members to help us purchase the right products.

Our insurance for malpractice has saved the groups that participate hundreds of thousands of dollars, both in the reduction of premiums and also a profit-sharing piece for the groups that participate. Aside from that, it really is improving the terms and conditions.

In discussing safe ways to place inferior vena cava filters with my IR colleagues in SR, we found that we could do this on completely anti-coagulated patients if we used the jugular vein and ultrasound for guidance. There is no need to stop the patient’s anticoagulation medicine due to the risk of puncturing the femoral artery during venous catheterization. It’s been a huge advantage for patients, referrers, and our practices.

We have saved more than seven figures in just having those opportunities of group purchasing available to us from all the different contracts SR has with various vendors.

The ability to access the expertise of radiology groups from across the country—some with more than 100 FTE radiologists and huge infrastructures of support—has been very valuable to us in terms of best practices, peer-to-peer interactions, and really leveraging what they’ve learned in their parts of the country and bringing it back to what we do.

When we joined Strategic Radiology, we were engaged in quality improvement, but we didn’t have an overarching quality program. Once we joined, we saw what other groups were doing, and we were inspired to have a dedicated program within our group: We hired a quality manager, created an internal quality committee, and since then, we’ve become a leader in SR’s Quality Program.

With Strategic, radiology is a team sport and that allows us access to amazing team members who have experience in multiple areas, multiple subspecialties, multiple leadership groups. MCRG has benefited a lot from collaboration with the other groups. There’s no reason for us to reinvent the wheel if someone else has found a good solution for a shared issue.

I recently hired a Director of Business Intelligence, and we visited another SR member practice with expertise in data analytics to establish an ongoing dialogue regarding best practices. This depth of collaboration is the essence of Strategic Radiology.

Another great benefit is being able to benchmark your practice relative to other SR practices. For instance, whenever some sections of our practice feel like they are working harder that others, you can present data that shows how they are working relative to similar sections in another group.