Speakers

In this session, we’ll dive into three leadership practices that flip the script from bosses and employees to leaders and team members. When fueled, the We-Cycle lightens the load for leaders, energizes team members and everyone including the organization wins.

Imaging informatics is a distinct subspecialty of radiology that endeavors to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and reliability of radiologic services within the medical enterprise. Although picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) are a major focus of imaging informatics, there are many other ways in which technology can improve the efficiency of individual radiologists and of the entire department. Understanding informatics principles is important because these principles affect major purchase decisions, not only for PACS but also for other supporting software and for modalities themselves. Virtually every aspect of a radiologist’s workday involves some form of communication: calling a colleague for patient history, calling a technologist to apply a protocol or check an image, reviewing images with a clinician, teaching a trainee, producing a formal report, justifying an examination to a third- party payer. All of these events fall under the purview of imaging informatics, and all of them, along with image interpretation itself, can become more efficient, more effective, and more reliable with the proper tools.

Rarely a year goes by when a medical imaging administrator does not have a project to manage, whether it be replacing legacy equipment or starting a new service. Regardless of the scope of the project, its successful implementation is dependent on effective project management. Some projects are organization-wide, and the medical imaging administrator will be a member of the team; other projects are “imaging-centric” so the administrator leads the project. This presentation will include basic terminology and tools used to manage any project. A case study will be presented to illustrate all the steps.

This session will define what negotiation is and describe situations where good negotiating skills may come in handy. The session will focus on important negotiations that occur in the imaging work environment and more specifically on negotiating for services, supplies, and capital purchases. Participants will learn the importance of and how to prepare for negotiation. Attendees will understand needs vs. wants vs. desires and what can be negotiated. Some negotiating styles, strategies, and tactics will be explored, and body language also will be discussed. The session will wrap up with a discussion on completing and reviewing your negotiation result.

Attendees will learn how to use data for acquiring equipment, improve processes, justify team members, as well as learn how to collect, organize, analyze and present data. Customer service and satisfaction has become and increasing focus in healthcare. Physicians and their patients are looking at healthcare providers for a positive patient experience. The customer focus is growing in relevance to the patients visit. The challenge of continuously improving is more important than ever. Identifying your customers to create a pleasant experience as well as positive patient outcomes is the new challenge. The healthcare industry has recognized that physicians and patients have a choice of where they go for care. How does your facility become more desirable than the others? One answer is an all-encompassing look at the customer’s total experience, start to finish. Key to addressing their needs is continuous assessment of critical customer satisfiers. Knowing how to recognize, evaluate and implement change to meet your customers’ needs is critical. Understanding the need is only part of the answer; implementation is the differentiator. Continuous improvement and change is a necessity to success. Breaking down the process into small tangible tasks that can improve the patient experience will give you the competitive edge in pursuit of customer service excellence.

Soup to nuts. This session will cover key ways to recruit, interview, hire, coach and retain talent in your imaging departments. Definition of Continuum: a continuous extent, succession, or whole, not part of which can be distinguished from neighboring parts. Does this sound easy to achieve when discussing staff who report to you? This session will offer you strategies to help you approach human resource matters with understanding and patience. Workforce continuums will quickly become models to others by demonstrating how candidates can enter a workforce, develop in their careers and stay put. Part 1 will emphasize the first step in seamless succession of career development focusing on interviewing with a mission to hire a person with the right fit, building the workforce through appropriate orientation measures, team building skills, relationship building, competency assessments and performance evaluations to reward approaches that will help develop a sound team (Recruit, Interview, Onboarding, Orientation and Training).

You will learn to:

• Match your needs with the right candidate by interviewing and hiring smartly.
• Develop your team with seamless approaches to the “next step”.
• Produce an atmosphere of commitment and communication with a focus on quality, safety, and customer service.
• Reward and retain employees effectively.
• Align behavior to goals.
• Develop shared expectations.

Soup to nuts. This session will cover key ways to recruit, interview, hire, coach and retain talent in your imaging departments. Definition of Continuum: a continuous extent, succession, or whole, not part of which can be distinguished from neighboring parts. Does this sound easy to achieve when discussing staff who report to you? This session will offer you strategies to help you approach human resource matters with understanding and patience. Work force continuums will quickly become models to others by demonstrating how candidates can enter a workforce, develop in their careers and stay put.

Part 2 emphasizes the next step to team building through Employee Engagement; Developing Accountable team members through Coaching, Counseling and Accountability.

You will learn to:

• Match your needs with the right candidate by interviewing and hiring smartly.
• Develop your team with seamless approaches to the “next step”.
• Produce an atmosphere of commitment and communication with a focus on quality, safety, and customer service.
• Reward and retain employees effectively.
• Align behavior to goals.
• Develop shared expectations.

From A to Z, the Alphabet Soup of regulatory requirements and compliance is a constant changing recipe for patient-focused quality care, safe environments, educated technologists, and best practices. Participants will be introduced to CMS’s accrediting organization (AO’s) and the current focus of the 2017 Joint Commission surveyors for Imaging Services. An overview of credentialing options for specific modalities will be reviewed along with recently introduced or upcoming regulatory requirements for reimbursement of services

Competitive markets and diminishing resources create high-level attention on how marketing impacts your future. No longer can you and your staff register for a marketing-exempt status. Keeping employees, physicians, patients and the community abreast of the activities in the hospital radiology department and imaging centers requires solid planning and innovative thinking. This interactive session will demonstrate the nuts and bolts of marketing, both internal and external, marketing plans and strategies, and the team commitment needed for growth.

Communication is an essential leadership tool; if you learn to communicate well, you will be more credible and effective. This session will help you to build your communication strengths and identify areas of opportunity and improvement. We will focus on several aspects of business communication including verbal and non-verbal messages. You will assess your current listening skills and learn tips for improving your ability to listen attentively. We will also discuss the art of persuasion and explore the use of hypnotic language and powerful words. The ability to speak confidently in a variety of business settings, both formal and informal is the mark of effective communicators. In this session, you will learn methods to systematically prepare materials for presentations or written proposals. We will also focus on the importance of translating your messages for your target audience.

Take a journey through the heart of Capitol Hill and learn about the hot topic issues in the federal healthcare policy landscape. Led by Branden Cordeiro and Nathan Baugh, members of AHRA's Regulatory Affairs Committee, this session will offer insights into unfolding Congressional and regulatory actions. In particular, we'll explore how these policies might resonate in the radiology setting, both in the immediate and long-term future. The session will strive to offer a balanced, non-partisan overview of both recent policy developments, while also looking around the bend to discuss where we might be headed next as a nation and as an industry. 
 
While the exact issues discussed will be tailored to developments occurring in the spring of 2024, some topics that may be discussed include: Medicare site-neutral payments, price transparency measures, the future of Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC), Medicare Part B reimbursement reform, and telehealth. This session will connect the dots from the nitty gritty of new regulations that impact imaging operations all the way up the policymaking chain to the drama we see in Congress and in the news. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the legislative and regulatory process and how they are impacted by decisions made by policymakers at the federal level. 
 
Understanding the broader healthcare policy discussion will help attendees identify and better understand macro trends in healthcare. Branden and Nathan will also highlight the top priorities of the Regulatory Affairs Committee and how AHRA has been able to positively influence the regulatory process throughout the years. Ultimately, attendees will walk away with an overview of how the healthcare system continues to evolve within the current political and policymaking context of Washington D.C.

Explore the game-changing potential of emotional intelligence in leadership within the dynamic realm of healthcare. Enhance your grasp of this vital skill set that encompasses emotional and social prowess, enabling leaders to skillfully recognize, comprehend, and convey emotions within the workplace. This comprehensive program strives to give healthcare leaders a profound understanding of emotional intelligence and its repercussions on their healthcare roles. Immerse yourself in the five core principles that constitute the emotional intelligence quotient. Participants will not solely amass theoretical knowledge but also pragmatic tactics to proficiently apply emotional intelligence in professional and personal contexts. Unearth how evaluations of emotional intelligence and tailor-made training regimens can encourage frontline workers to rise as exceptional leaders, concurrently nurturing heightened self-awareness and advancement within the staff. Through adept instruction and guidance, your personnel will acquire invaluable proficiencies to navigate and react to emotions in a manner that optimizes performance. Upon the culmination of this program, you will emerge as a leader who wields emotional efficacy, armed to amplify your organization’s comprehensive performance and kindle unparalleled advancement among your dedicated team. Unleash the transformative potential of emotional intelligence and usher in a new era of leadership distinction in healthcare.

AI has had an amazing effect on Radiology but many of us do not totally understand how it is changing our roles in preparing our departments for its use. This requires we understand what it is, how it interacts and how we can train our staff, explain how it effects our bottom line and improves quality and patient, referring MD and staff satisfaction.

Financial reports as management tools ; creating business plans and forecasts; using “the numbers” as a management tool; variance analysis, trends and “root cause analysis”. An “activity based” approach to using the numbers. A compelling approach to preparing the business case to support requesting capital for investment in new or replacement imaging equipment or “footprint expansion”. As we have commented repeatedly during the LOC program, partnering with finance is a critical step in building our personal brand image and in achieving success with the financial and “business” aspects of leadership in radiology!

Prismatic Leadership® is complex. Brain research shows that authoritative power can inhibit leaders from seeing the plight of others. This power can lower their ability for connection, creativity and cultural awareness. Since creativity needs psychological safety, intellectual humility, curiosity and empathy to flourish, effective leaders must be aware of how power, position and authority can skew their perspective. Learn brain-based strategies to mitigate the effects of power and become an efficient Prismatic Leader®.

Radiologists and hospitals frequently employ physician extenders, non-physician professionals who assist the radiologist and perform certain imaging services independently. These professionals may have a variety of different credentials, including Radiology Practitioner Assistant (RPA), Registered Radiologist Assistant (RRA), Physician Assistant (PA), Nurse Practitioner (NP), and others. This session will briefly discuss the differences among the various credentials in terms of training and education. Then we will review in depth the Medicare requirements for non-physician practitioner billing and for “incident-to” billing, including the types of professionals to which these concepts apply; the limitations and restrictions on place of service, type of service, etc.; and the type of physician supervision required. Examples will be provided of billable and non-billable services performed by the various types of professionals in the hospital and non-hospital setting (imaging center, private office).

Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by someone not just from a title or experience. It primarily comes from their commitment to their process and the of the care unit overall to inspire others to be their best in their role and duties. They are leaders by example who understand the process to create healthier and more productive work environments through their action. They inspire others team members in their care unit to be responsible and accountable for their own tasks so they can come together and form an interdependent business environment, Teams fully engaged lead to higher employee satisfaction and impact patients to have more valuable experiences. Come learn to apply the methodology of how mentorship to be an effective leader by example can create an interdependent culture that leads to higher satisfaction levels with your team’s role and duties. Then, how this reflects outward with a synergistic effort to create more valuable experiences for your patients through effective communication and level of care. .

We describe ten steps recommended to achieve the goal of implementing EI for an institution. The first step is to define and access all images used for medical decision-making. Next, demonstrate how EI is a powerful strategy for enhancing patient and caregiver experience, improving population health, and reducing cost. Then, it is recommended that one must understand the specialties and their clinical workflow challenges as related to imaging. Step four is to create a strategy to improve quality of care and patient safety with EI. Step five demonstrates how EI can reduce costs. Then, show how EI can help enhance the patient experience. Step seven suggests how EI can enhance the work life of caregivers and step eight describes how to develop EI governance. Step nine describes the plan to implement an EI project, and finally, step 10, to understand cybersecurity from a patient safety perspective and to protect images from accidental and malicious intrusion.

We will discuss the objectives and efforts of the ACR-convened Blue Ribbon Panel on Fluoroscopy Safety, a multi-stakeholder collaboration featuring representation from several medical imaging societies, regulatory advisory groups, and professional organizations, including the AHRA whom the speaker is representing. The BRP has been charged with several tasks, one of which is to propose courses of action to improve the safety of fluoroscopy patients and users and to help standardize minimum expectations for safe fluoroscopy practice across the United States. AHRA membership has provided valuable input via the online forum. This talk will highlight those contributions in light of the BRP’s effort to produce a white paper containing simple recommendations for the optimization of fluoroscopy safety. This guidance can be adopted and implemented in any clinical setting where fluoroscopy imaging is used. We will also discuss the importance of the role that radiology administrators and managers may have in promoting a culture of fluoroscopy safety once the BRP white paper is published. This role may include leveraging published guidance on operator credentialing and hands-on training to craft sensible policies to help affect change in departments that extend beyond Radiology, where knowledge of standard radiation safety practices may be limited. In many ways, the Medical Physics 3.0 initiative runs parallel to the work being done by the BRP, so we also will briefly touch on where the two overlap. It is the hope of the BRP that the forthcoming publication will help equip imaging management leaders with valuable tools and information concerning fluoroscopic radiation and to spark close collaboration with physicists, technologists, nurses, and physicians as we seek to improve fluoroscopy safety for all.