Reporter Bulletin February 2024

A message from Sarah Burns

Welcome and introduction

2024 has started as 2023 left off, with Medica services busier than ever. Within our last newsletter, Dr Rob Lavis provided an update on progress with our MedConnect™ project, Medica’s new reporting platform. With HL-7 integration, MedConnect provides instant log in, full access to reports and imaging history, scanned documents and PDFs and some integration of alerts.

We are discussing next steps of product development now that we are live with Milton Keynes and we will be rolling this out as quickly as possible to additional sites. The project is now gathering momentum as we speak, with the appointment of Marc Young, Business Transformation Manager to oversee the rollout to many other client sites. Medica has an ambitious target during 2024, to enable in excess of 15 clients to be connected via Medconnect, with both Northampton and Kettering hospitals next to be deployed. In other exciting developments for Medica, our Teleradiology+ service is also being integrated into a small number of our clients. Teleradiology+ is designed to help tackle the local hospital administrative burden

associated with and around teleradiology, and we have appointed Morwenna Haslam to head up this service. Morwenna is a radiographer by background, and has spent much of her career involved in radiology and managed services, so will be well placed to integrate Medica resource and capability within our client hospitals to assist with more efficient and effective use of Medica’s services.

Sarah

Sarah Burns, UK Managing Director

An update from Group Medical Director, Dr Rob Lavis

2023 saw several clinically important issues come to the fore and I would like to share those with you:

Professionalism: You may have seen the Webinar in November (available in the Medica Library) covering many areas including the new GMC Good Medical Practice 2024 and how they may apply in Teleradiology. Please review the webinar and/or the GMC guidance. Professionalism also includes communication, be that verbal, written, email, social media, etc. Please be aware of email trails that you may pass on and their potential impact and consider your professional position carefully when posting in a public arena on social media.

Coroner’s cases: There were several cases in 2023 involving Medica radiologists. One centred around alerting of suspected TB. This continues to be an important public health issue and reporters should remain vigilant and raise clinician awareness of potential cases. A second case related to declining to report a CT angiogram undertaken for possible leaking aneurysm in NightHawk™. There was a

resultant 4-hour delay which the coroner felt had a significant impact on patient care. If you are allocated a case that you think may be out of your remit, please review the imaging to see if there is a critical finding before asking for it to be reallocated. If there is, call the NightHawk™ team and ensure that it is reallocated ASAP. These areas are covered in the recently released and updated alerts policy.

Legal cases: Legal cases, coroner’s cases, discrepancies, SIs/SUIs/RCAs can all be stressful for those involved. In 2023 we released a guide to signpost resources that may be of help in managing these difficult times. In addition, the Clinical, Clinical Governance and legal teams will offer advice where they can.

Regarding indemnity, please ensure that you maintain continuous cover by engaging with your provider in advance of renewal, much like with your car insurance. I suggest that you always try to secure cover that is occurrence based (roll off cover) in order to be covered after you retire or finish private work, confirm that your cover is adequate for work that you do and that it is of adequate value and that your indemnity organisation gives you contractual

rather than discretionary cover. If you are retiring from practice and have traditionally had claims based cover, speak with your provider to see if they will offer run off cover post retirement for your peace of mind.

Rob Group Medical Director

An update from clinical governance

Clinical governance appreciate that responding to discrepancies can be stressful, but we are here to help if you are uncertain on how to navigate this process. Discrepancy response guidance is available on our Wiki to guide you when responding

to cases.

There is a guide to using Insight for reporters in your ‘Policies’ drive.

Please ensure you have reviewed the ‘response and comments’ tab in the Insight entry where you can read comments and instructions from the CG team together with any review by an arbitrator.

If you need help, or are not able to respond within 48 hours of receiving an Insight query or discrepancy then please contact us at clinical@medica.co.uk

Julie Group Head of Clinical Quality & Governance

With religious holidays just around the corner, help us to plan for these periods by booking your leave now.

An update on MedPath™, our digital pathology service

We have now successfully launched Phase 1 of MedPath™. This allows clients to send us glass slides which are then digitised and reported via PACS. Phase 2 is on track to complete late February 2024. This phase provides us with full digital capability allowing us to receive digital images from clients and again be reported via our PACS. Current activities include user acceptance testing before we switch over to the live environment for final testing.

We continue to recruit and onboard the Histopathologists we need to support the service. Accreditation visits for ISO15189 have been completed with the UKAS recommendation for us to be accredited. A great achievement.

Our pipeline for potential clients is looking very positive with many NHS

organisations expressing interest. We are attending several congresses this year where we aim to strengthen our pipeline further.

Shaping our offering to align with the dynamic landscape and demands on the NHS has been crucial. Successfully launching MedPath™ owes its success to the exceptional teams involved, both within Medica and our external providers.

Darren Darren Dacosta Project Manager, MedPath™

An update on MedConnect™, our reporter platform renewal (RPR)

As you know on the 1st November 2023, Medica launched MedConnect™, the new reporting platform for Medica. The first client to be integrated was Milton Keynes. By integrated we mean:

• HL7 orders (requests for reporting) are sent from the Trust RIS to Medica.

• On receipt of the order, Medica automatically retrieves the patients’ clinical history (either scanned request or electronic order) and prior reports/future appointments from the Trust RIS.

• Report is created in MedConnect™.

• Medica returns a HL7 report (including any addendums) to the Trust RIS.

Feedback from reporters who have used the MedConnect™ platform and workflow for Milton Keynes

has been extremely positive and we are very keen now to move onto replicating the set up at subsequent sites.

Over the past few weeks, we have been reviewing some elements of the HL7 message handling with the Magentus CRIS, in order to make a few small changes and improvements before we bring the next sites into MedConnect™ –likely to be the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire Group (two sites, Northampton & Kettering). As those on the panel will be aware, there is a PACS based reporting model in situ (the GE Erad Cockpit) so that does add a little extra complexity over the Milton Keynes integration, but we have agreed message flows between all parties and are hoping to start the implementation soon.

Alongside this integration there are some next stages of the project beginning now and will happen in

parallel:

1. Phase 2 MedConnect™ developments. A business case is now in planning for approval to proceed to make some changes to the MedConnect™ platform to improve the reporter experience and provide tighter integration to Sectra PACS.

2. MedConnect™ roll out. The operations team, led by a new transformation manager, are planning for the roll out to more clients in 2024.

If you have any queries about the project, please contact your Reporter Relations representative, or the Medica Project Management Office at PMO@medica.co.uk

Andrea

Andrea James, Project Manager, MedConnect™

An update from clinical applications

The clinical applications team has been actively engaged in several key initiatives and projects. We’ve recently launched a ground-breaking AI/reporting pilot in collaboration with Siemens Healthineers, aiming to enhance our capabilities in chest CT diagnostic imaging. Additionally, we have rolled out stage 1 of a new automated image data purging system from PACS, which has significantly improved performance and data management.

Our team has successfully completed numerous service line and client deployments, along with implementing updates to MedConnect™ to address bugs and automate report purging. While facing challenges with slow engagement from Sectra on the message optimisation project, we’ve continued testing Azure-hosted Qure AI systems and commenced scoping/testing for the Siemens AI pilot.

Overall, our dedication to innovation and collaboration remains priority as we aim to deliver excellence in clinical applications and support.

Christa

Christa Speer PACS and Radiology Systems Manager

Events calendar

We would love to meet with you at one of the following events that we will be attending.

BSSR Sports Study Day and Spring Members’ Meeting, Liverpool

Thursday 14th - Friday 15th March

Next-Gen Digital Pathology Conference, London

Thursday 21st - Friday 22nd March

(BSUR) British Society of Urogenital Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting, Manchester

Thursday 16th and Friday 17th May

(SRT) Society of Radiologists in Training Annual Conference, Brighton

Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th May

UKIO, Liverpool | Monday 10th

Wednesday 12th June

RSM (BSHNI) Annual Head and Neck Imaging Conference, London

Thursday 27th - Friday 28th June

Acute services update

In the last month the NightHawk™ team have been focusing on re-allocation of exams. We have started to remind all radiologists if they receive an exam that is genuinely inappropriate to be reported as a general emergency case (e.g. oncology follow up scan) or is genuinely outside their skill set (such as peripheral angiogram), that we would appreciate it if they could be explicit as to why it is outside their remit when returning it to us. This allows us to follow up with clients and more importantly, arrange for that exam to be sent to an appropriate radiologist for reporting in a timely manner.

We have also noticed some issues with reporting paediatric exams that lead to further re-allocations, delays in reporting and sometimes refusal to report which all impact our patient first approach. We would like to remind you of the guidance issued by clinical governance that paediatric cases should

be reported by the vast majority of our NightHawk™ radiologist with the appropriate rider at the foot of the report and the option to recommend local review or for Medica via clinical governance the next working day.

We have already seen that through better communication with you all in the last month, we have managed to reduce the number of exams re-allocated; out of remit by 43% and over all re-allocation by just over 27%, which is fantastic and directly improves the patients ongoing management and I wanted to express my thanks to you all for your continued engagement and contribution.

Finally I wanted to update you

on the staffing provision across NightHawk™ as I’m sure you continue to welcome the new members to our team as we continue with our recruitment drive. We will be onboarding a number of additional administrators over the coming weeks that will cover the core service hours and bolster the weekend support too. We have also acknowledged feedback from you around our processes and performance and will be providing a number of improvements and refresher courses to our team members that hold both allocator and supporting allocation roles.

Petra

Petra O’Neill, Acute Operations Manager

An update from IT

Following on from some of the points I discussed in December, I’m pleased to announce that the thin client device for overseas reporters is almost ready and looking likely to be rolled out to our India based doctors in Q2, before expanding the rollout to other regions later in the year. There are a number of benefits ranging from ease of rollout and support, improved endpoint security, removal of windows updates on the local device and of course a much smaller and lighter device that’s easier and cheaper to ship and maintain.

The team responsible for the move to Windows 11 have made great progress since the last bulletin. Many staff are now testing Windows 11 in the office environment, and I’m pleased to say our first doctor has joined in and is actively reporting using a Windows 11 workstation. With a handful of other doctors due to move to Windows 11 over the next few weeks, pace will soon pick up. Please do keep a look out over the coming months for emails from the IT Service Desk requesting you agree a mutually convenient time to upgrade or replace your workstation. For many this will also mean moving to the latest version of Dragon Medical. We will of course need your co-operation and I’d like to thank you in advance for your support.

Work continues in our data centres to ensure not just a secure and stable environment we have all come to expect, but improving performance has been at the forefront of our recent activities. The new Meraki routers connect into large and powerful devices that are located in separate areas in both of our data centres, bringing significant increases in performance and reliability. Couple this with the increase in home broadband speeds seen in the UK over the past 5 years, the team have created an environment that will not only grow and support our remote doctor workforce for years to come but provide an improved experience allowing our UK based doctors to maximise their time spent working for Medica.

Rob Rob Harrison Head of IT

An update from reporter relations

The start of 2024 has seen the Reporter Relations team increase! We warmly welcome two new representatives: Kieran Dighton and Liam Veevers O’Hare whom some reporters may well have seen in correspondence with recently.

In January, we reached out to reporters on our acute service to emphasise the importance of adhering to committed shifts. Your feedback and support have been invaluable to reporter relations. Our shared goal is to maintain the highest standard of patient care on our acute service while ensuring top-quality service for our clients.

The number of scans we receive from sites depends on our capacity. This is where your job plans come into play, for reporters across our service lines. The reporter relations representatives are here to assist you in providing a seamless service to our clients, should you need to amend your job plan.

1. Knowing about shifts you may be unable to attend or might be late for allows us to fill gaps in the rota efficiently. It also ensures we meet our service level agreements with our sites.

2. Committed shifts play a crucial role in minimising scan breaches for, especially our NightHawk™ team.

3. Reporters can amend their job plans when there are changes their hours in work commitments, personal commitments but also reporters can take advantage of available sessions where currently we need capacity.

Currently, we need more coverage during the hours of;

Monday 17:00 to 19:00

Tuesday 00:00 to 6:00

Tuesday 17:00 to 19:00

Wednesday 01:00 to 06:00

Wednesday 17:00 to 19:00

Thursday 04:00 to 07:00

Friday 17:00 to 22:00

Saturday 00:00 to 4:00

Saturday 15:00 to 22:00

Sunday 00:00 to 04:00

Sunday 10:00 to 18:00

As we approach Easter and== Ramadan, I kindly request reporters to book any time off through the Deputy app or by reaching out to the scheduling team. For both elective and acute reporters, providing **14 days’ notice** helps us fill gaps effectively and meet our clients’ expectations.

Thank you for your continued dedication and commitment to Medica!

Announcements

Medical appraisers wanted

Our appraisal and revalidation team want you to join them. This is an exciting opportunity for appraisers and for those that may be interested in training as an appraiser. As an appraiser, you will be part of a team of experienced appraisers contributing to appraisal and revalidation processes for connected doctors at Medica.

What you would be doing:

• Carrying out appraisals in accordance with GMC guidance and NHS England Medical Appraisal Policy

• Ensuring that the appraisal covers the whole scope of doctors’ practice and reviewing progress against a PDP

• Ensuring adequate information is provided for the Responsible Officer to make appropriate revalidation recommendations

• Committing to completing five appraisals annually

What we offer:

• A supportive team environment

• Sophisticated and interactive appraisal platform with Licence to Practise (L2P)

• Ongoing training and development

• Job satisfaction

Find out more:

This is an exciting opportunity for new appraisers to join our team. If you are interested and would like to discuss further, please contact revalidation@medica.co.uk.

Refer a friend and get rewarded

Do you know a radiographer that would enjoy remote reporting for the NHS?

We pay existing Medica reporters

£250 for every person they refer*

Have a friend to refer? Talk to our recruitment team:

recruitment@medica.co.uk

01424 762 111

*£250 will be given once the first three months of reporting have been completed by the new team member

Your CPD/CME with us

We are pleased to announce the next seminar:

REALM talk on plain film reporting including Medica CXR NG tube policy

Tuesday 5th March

18.00-19.00

Presented by:

Mike Mackenzie Clinical Lead Radiographer

Save the date in your diaries, the registration link will be sent out two weeks before the event. We believe this seminar series will contribute to your continuous professional development. We look forward to your participation and the opportunity to learn and grow together.

Dates for the diary:

Our seminars continue through Spring 2024 on Tuesdays, March 26th, April 30th and May 28th.

Please note, if you’ve missed any of our previous seminar series or would like to revisit them, you can access the recordings in the Medica Library using your Medica email address.

Courses coming up

CT Colonography for Radiologists

Virtual, 11-12th March

MSK Xray Interpretation for Beginners

Virtual, 15-16th April

Cardiac CT for Radiographers

Virtual, 17th April

Cardiac MRI for Radiographers

Cambridge/Virtual, 18-19th April

MSK Ultrasound (Hands-on)

Cambridge, 22-26th April

Breast Imaging

Virtual, 8-9th May

Cardiac CT Level 1/2 Course

Malaysia, 20-24th May

Cardiac MRI Case Review Course

Malaysia, 27-29th May

Cardiac CT Level 1/2 Course

Essex/Virtual, 10-14th June

For more information visit: www.jcaseminars.com/courses

Alternatively, you can contact the team at JCA for further details and to book courses. courseenquiries@jcaseminars.com

The Bristol MRI (MSK, Abdominal, Neuro)

Bristol, 17-20th June

Advanced Abdominal Body Imaging

Cambridge/Virtual 25th-27th June

Dubai Cardiac CT Level 2

Dubai, 9-13th September