TeleRAD IT SmartRAD Case Study: Nighthawk Pros Teleradiology

For NightHawk Pros, a small radiology services group providing both night and daytime coverage, having the right technology in place to meet the needs of their rapidly expanding client base of hospitals is mission critical.

Initially using a PACS system purchased from a vendor they didn’t know much about, the NightHawkPros team was frequently frustrated by the inability of their PACS‑in‑a‑box solutions’ inability to keep up with their evolving workflow requirements.

NightHawkPros President Dr. Maheep Goyal outlines the core problems, “We had to manually download each case which was leading to major turnaround time issues. We had no dynamic work list, which meant that when we got large enough to add another physician to our practice, we had no real‑time way of coordinating workflow. The result was doctors frequently wasting time double reading cases. It was getting crazy.”

When the NightHawkPros business started to really pick up, with growth in multiple markets across the United States, things only got worse. Constant system crashes were leading to continual disconnects between reading physicians the client hospitals at the other end.

“We were having great difficulty interconnecting multiple hospitals, all with varying degrees of technical knowledge, access to IT staff and in many cases, incredibly outdated software and equipment. The off‑the‑shelf PACS just wasn’t doing what we needed it to.”

A chance encounter with the TeleRAD IT team at a medical services conference was all it took to get things moving in the right direction. After a couple of consultation and planning sessions, TeleRAD IT was able to implement their SmartRAD solution within a couple of weeks and dramatically improve the NigthHawkPros service offering virtually overnight.

Says Maheep, “Telerad IT has multiple ways of connecting to any client and they customize each hospital’s connection to our PACS. Constant monitoring of our system is now handled for us by the SmartRAD™ team. Any minor issues that arise are quickly resolved, usually before they even get noticed by either client radiologists or our staff. And of course, when we bought the original PACS, it was outdated far too quickly. Now all PACS upgrades are performed automatically and without a physical service call, so our software is always state‑of‑the‑art.”

Dr. Goyal sums up the perhaps the best part of SmartRAD™, “The cost of the TeleRAD IT solution is actually cheaper than maintaining our own PACS when you consider the cost of hosting, equipment, engineering support and software charges.”

Nighthawk Pros estimates that the TeleRAD IT SmartRAD™ solution has reduced labor costs by 37%, achieved via workflow improvements, as well as reducing their overall solutions costs by at least 18%, all while providing a technologically superior, more secure web‑based solution that virtually eliminated client retention issues and has set NightHawkPros up for another round of revenue growth. Contact the TeleRAD business development team today to learn more about getting our SmartRAD™ solution working for you.