One of the most interesting and fun things about my job is visiting clients. I find I learn a lot from the experience, both in terms of getting feedback on our services (which I am happy to report is overwhelmingly positive!) as well as to see and understand the new trends that are taking shape in hospital based healthcare and to learn what challenges our clients face in their own practices. It is also helpful to communicate issues and challenges we face in our Teleradiology practice. Most of all it is a great connect and bonding, to meet face to face with radiologists, Emergency physicians and technologists, who are otherwise voices at the end of a phone line, and to give them an opportunity to see the person behind the voice as well. I have been visiting our clients regularly over the past ten years of our existence. Most recently, I visited with three of our clients in the sunny state of Florida (I visit northern clients in the summer). Each of the hospitals was of a different size, and I began with the largest and busiest and ended with the smallest and least busy one (this was more related to geography and location rather than anything else). Predictably, the staff at the large/busy centers are the ones who are under the greatest work pressure and who therefore have the least amount of time to interact before becoming once again immersed in their work, while it is interesting to see how at the smaller facilities, the staff seem to have more time available to discuss things. It is noteworthy to see how much information is openly displayed by hospitals in the US, including charts in the ED indicating all possible metrics, including wait times, patient satisfaction ratings etc. Also the abundance of patient education
materials in the form of brochures, handouts and posters. I always return from such visits inspired to do more for patient education in our own diagnostic center RXDX.
Such visits typically involve a lot of driving. My most memorable experience in this regard is one where I drove 4 hours to visit a client in a small town north of Los Angeles and then drove 4 hours back to catch my flight onward. 8 hours driving for a 30 minute meeting. And yet, it was well worth it. The client remains one of our most steadfast ones, a source of great satisfaction to us. And that’s really what it’s all about.