Fall Cleaning- Imaging Style (part 1)

As the days get shorter and a bit cooler it is time to fill the heating oil, check the thermostat and … do your 4th quarter work. Paradoxically it is both a busy time and a quiet time. On one hand we often see an internal push to spend any extra money before the end of the year, along with vendors pressing to install or ship to reach their goals. On the other hand, you have Thanksgiving, RSNA and the Christmas holidays creating lots of OOO messages. Between the holidays and RSNA we typically can lose up to a full month of work time in the 4th quarter. 

So, what do you do when you find that you and your team are the only ones putting in full days at the office? How about all those things you’ve been putting off the prior 9 months? This 4th quarter lull is a great time to get those tasks done without the interruption of things like patient care, trouble tickets or project meetings! For my fellow early-birds, this is like that golden, extra-productive quiet time from 6 - 9AM before your phone starts blowing up, but now you get it all day long!

And, in case you’re having trouble remembering all those things you put off tidying-up all year, here are some ideas from the administrative side to get you going.

Renew quotes - If the fiscal year starts in January, you will need to get your quotes refreshed so you can issue purchase orders first thing.

Asset tags and invoicing - All those wonderful projects done throughout the year need to be closed out. Many people “forget” to tag equipment and turn in the serial numbers. Now is a great time to confirm those numbers, fill in the paperwork/close it out and keep that project from rolling over to next year’s to-do list.

New year schedules - The new year will be here before you know it, so take the time now to frame out all budgeted projects and resources.   Even if it’s only tentatively lined out by quarters, putting together an initial configuration of when projects will get done, and ensuring resources are aligned to cover each project, will make life much easier in 2019.

Documentation - When was the last time you reviewed your standard operating procedures? For most of us the last time we reviewed them is when we wrote them. 4th quarter is a great time to pull out those SOP’s for a once-over. One of the best ways I’ve found to “review” your SOP is to use it, literally. Get someone who doesn’t work on the system day in and day out and have them follow the process. If they can successfully accomplish whatever it is (add a modality, fail over, create a new database, etc.) then you have a good process, check it off and move on to the next. If not, you know the procedure needs an overhaul.

Management reports - Pretty soon you will be asked for tons of reports regarding studies stored, GB per location, trends and growth rates. Time to dust off all of the queries if you run them yourself or reach out to vendors if they will be doing it. Although most of your numbers won’t finalize until year-end you can get a jump start on those trends/growth rate numbers, as well as make adjustments to queries based on any projected new parameters. Regardless of strategy, end of year management reporting is coming, better get a head start on it.

Future plans - Rarely do you get a chance to stop and think what if? So, if you’ve done everything else and you have a little spare time, get creative! Book a few white-boarding sessions with the team and ask far-reaching questions. What would I do with an unlimited budget? What are some big changes we could make to improve reliability? Patient care? Do this brainstorming without constraints, imagine a perfect world. Then take the viable ideas and dial it back a bit, what is reasonable to do in 1-3 years? Setup some concrete steps that you think management might fund. Now you have some innovative ideas to move forward with. Contact some vendors, get list pricing and put together a proposal. Even if it doesn’t get funded there is tremendous value in the exercise, not only for team development, but in knowledge sharing and fostering open dialogues on how you can improve your systems.

Be on the lookout for Fall Cleaning Part 2 where I’ll share some ideas for system level cleanup. Here’s to a productive 4th quarter!

As always, love to hear your comments, thoughts and ideas so reach out on the blog, email or LinkedIn.