In today's tight economy, every business is looking for ways to improve productivity, and specialized medical offices are no exception. For those in Podiatry and Urgent Care, utilizing Podiatry DR and Urgent Care DR imaging systems can eliminate long wait times and other issues encountered with producing film x-rays, which leads to a better office workflow.

Both types of medical practices can improve both patient care and workflow by getting rid of all the downtime that keeps physicians away from their patients. One of the big problem areas when film x-rays were used was waiting for processing and development of the images. All of this wasted time has been eliminated with the advent of digital imaging in medicine.

Digital images can be taken in seconds, and just as quickly viewed, distributed and stored on a personal computer utilizing the appropriate hardware and software systems. This makes it possible to determine right away if an image did not come out properly, so you can take more while the patient is still with you, and it makes it possible to get the vital information you need from the digital medical images in seconds, allowing you to focus your concentration of diagnosis rather than routine office tasks. This helps to make your medical office more productive.

Distribution of film x-rays was also time consuming. Film images had to printed out, and then mailed to the consulting physicians. With digital imaging produced with Urgentcare DR systems, you can send and receive digital medical images on a personal computer that is equipped with a PACS system, saving crucial time in getting second opinions, which improves patient care while at the same time enhances your office workflow.

Storage of digital x-rays is also a big improvement over film x-rays. The film images had to be stored as hard copies in large storage rooms, which cost money for maintenance. When you consider that HIPPA regulations require that medical images be saved for up to seven years, you can see how this problem expands exponentially with every patient you see.

All of this wasted time and expense has been eliminated with DR systems. Digital x-rays may be stored on CDs, DVDs, on hard drives and on servers, located both on- and off-site. This routine chore can be programmed to happen automatically, thus saving each physician using the system a great deal of time, and offers another example of how that time can be spent working with patients, to improve office productivity.