Joey Wahler (Host): They show what's happening in our bodies. So, we're discussing advancements in medical imaging. Our guests from Southeast Georgia Health System, Chris Beasley, Director of Imaging Services and Chad Robertson, he's Manager of Imaging Services.

This is Health Matters from Southeast Georgia Health System. Thanks for joining us. I'm Joey Wahler. Hi there, Chris and Chad. Thanks for being with us.

Chris Beasley, MBA: Hey, Joey. Thanks for having us today.

Chad Roberson, MBA: Hello.

Host: Absolutely. Great to have you aboard. So first, in a nutshell, what drew the two of you to healthcare and imaging in particular? Let's start with you, Chris.

Chris Beasley, MBA: I tell you what, I was a young man in high school and my mother was a teacher at that high school, and she was officed next to a lady that was our health occupations teacher. So, they said, "Hey, how would you like to go to school in your senior year, half a day at work and half a day at school?" And I said, "I think that's great." So, I got into an outpatient imaging center when I was 16 years old and started working there as part of my school, transitioned straight from there into our local junior college and went to x-ray school there.

Host: Wow. And it seems so many people I talked to in healthcare were motivated to get into it in the first place by something or someone impacting them very early on in life. I bet you could tell some interesting stories about having mom work at your high school, but that's a whole other podcast.

Chris Beasley, MBA: A whole other story. Yes. Yes.

Host: How about you, Chad? What got it started for you?

Chad Roberson, MBA: Well, for me, it was my mother as well. She was in healthcare. She was a surgical tech, worked with one of our local orthopedic surgeons in his office. So I was exposed early on as a young child to the healthcare industry and spent a lot of time actually at Southeast Georgia Health System where she worked. So, that was, for me, an early exposure as a child brought me a great interest in it.

Host: So, you're both very singularly focused, it sounds like, early on in life. We're talking, as mentioned, about advancements in imaging technology. And so first, Chris, what is rad/fluoro technology? And simply put, for our audience, how does it enhance diagnostic capabilities?

Chris Beasley, MBA: Yeah. Rad/fluoro is one of our traditional x-ray rooms that also has a capability of fluoro. So, when I say the term rad, that's your typical x-ray machine that hangs from the ceiling, and we can take x-rays on a flat table or standing upright of the chest, well, that's a rad room. What the fluoro does for us is allows us to do live x-rays. That's when a radiologist would come in the room. And we might do something like an upper GI where you drink barium or barium enema. Those kind of studies are done under live fluoro. Fluoro means live x-ray, and then they can follow those things around, look at those things as it goes through your body. So, great technology, and we've seen a lot of improvements lately.

Host: And another piece of great technology for you, Chad, is C-arm surgical equipment. So, what's the benefit behind their implementation in operating rooms? And in a nutshell, what is that?

Chad Roberson, MBA: So, C-arm, they're used in the operating room. We essentially take the fluoroscopy component from what Chris was just discussing and move it to the OR. So, it helps guide the surgeons, whether it be at orthopedic surgery or general surgery in their procedure and guides them through it so that they can see where they're putting screws, where they're adding stitches. And as they go through that, we can take live images if they need it, or still images with that piece of equipment.

Host: So, Chris, what would be an example of a specific case or procedure where that C-arm technology has made a notable difference in a patient outcome?

Chris Beasley, MBA: I think orthopedics work is probably one of the biggest areas. So, if you go in there with a broken ankle and your doctor has to put in a plate or screws, that's how they know how far to drive those screws. That's how they know where to position those plates. They're working in conjunction with what they're seeing live. So, they're working on the bones and such. But what they're also doing is they're also monitoring on x-ray where they're going with those things. Another one's a cholangiogram. If you've got a gallbladder or having problems with your bile duct system, we'll do cholangiograms in the OR and they can inject contrast in there and watch that contrast go through. So, we do a lot of work in the OR. I really enjoy it.

Host: Let's talk DEXA scanners. Chad, how have hospital volunteers contributed to acquiring and using those?

Chad Roberson, MBA: So, our volunteers, they raise money for our health system. They have a foundation of their own that, when they do the bake sales, when they sell goods in our gift shop and various other ways, they raise money. And when they get a certain amount of money, they select a certain service line that needs something or a piece of equipment or something of the sort, and they donate that money to that service line.

So, in this past year, we were fortunate enough to get two new DEXA scanners. With new technology, these new DEXA scanners brought both reliability and additional resources in technology to our patients and physicians.

Host: Gotcha. Chris, we know that when it comes to breast cancer, that early detection, early prevention is so important. Why are 3D mammographies so crucial, and why have those facilities for you and yours been expanded?

Chris Beasley, MBA: First of all, I just want to shout out to our executive team and to our board for supporting our expansion of these services. And we have had for a few years, 3D mammography here. That's so critical because it gives us a deeper look into that breast tissue. The radiologists are able to see so much more whenever they do that 3D technology. And so, we added that several years ago. I talked about the investment of our executive team and our board. And, once again, I'm just grateful for their support because what's happened is when we added 3D, we had lot of patients start coming here and we love that. We want to take care of the folks, but what's happened is we've gotten a backlog and so we weren't able to get through all the patients that we had scheduled.

Well, the commitment of this organization is to really look out for the best interest of our community. So, we got quite a few weeks out and we had people that are concerned, because we're not getting those early detections done soon enough. Earlier this year, the board voted to approve two new units. One of those is going to be here on the Brunswick campus. One's going to be on the Camden campus. That's going to expand our capacity more than a dozen patients a day at each location. And we're just so happy about that. Those are just coming to the end. Those units have just been installed. We're going through our physicist review of those units. And, once we get that staffed, we're looking forward to opening those rooms up and taking care of more people and reducing those backlogs, but just grateful for the approach of our local board, looking out for the community.

Host: Yeah. Absolutely important to note indeed. Chad, how about storage upgrades at the facilities? How have they improved the accessibility of patient imaging data?

Chad Roberson, MBA: So, it's really come a long way. This storage upgrade that we just completed, and we're still migrating data as we speak, what that's going to do is it's going to help the efficiency of our physicians and our radiologists get those reports back to the ordering physicians and get the treatment to the patients that need it.

Chris Beasley, MBA: If I might add to that, one of the increases that we have that we're really looking forward to is technology where we store those images and those reports and all those things is on spinning disk. And that was great 10, 15 years ago. But as time's gone forward, more solid state's more stable and it's actually faster. And that's what's going to help us to move those images around.

Host: Switching technology formats, always important as well, right?

Chris Beasley, MBA: Keeping up with the times.

Host: Sometimes not the most fun job, but somebody's got to do it.

Chris Beasley, MBA: Right.

Host: So, Chris, we're talking of course about technology here, but naturally there are people like yourselves behind that technology. How has switching from an increased MRI or switching to an increased MRI mammography staffing situation helped you to improve care. You've really beefed that up, right?

Chris Beasley, MBA: Yeah. Well, let me just say this. Across the healthcare industry nationwide, there's a shortage of healthcare professionals, so we all struggle. When we go to that marketplace and we look for people, we really have to continue to be one of the places of choice for our employees. We did get support from our leadership over this last year to add hours at night for MRI. We did have MRI until 7:00 p.m. Now, we have MRI 24 hours a day. So, that means if you come in the ER at night and you need an MRI, we have somebody here to take care of you now. So, that's a direct patient impact. Before, we would have had to call somebody in, there would have been longer waits, such like that. We also now have 24/7 coverage at night in our ultrasound. And having that 24/7 coverage at night, our ultrasound is a benefit in the same way. If those studies are needed in the middle of the night, we can take care of those people.

Going back to the industry, it's hard to recruit these folks. There's not enough students coming through school, whether it be ultrasound school or x-ray school or nuclear medicine school. And so, we are working really hard to do some recruitment. One of the things that we've benefited is when I came to this department, just about 15 months ago, we were about 30% short on personnel. Now, we're down to about 8% short on personnel. So, we've really made a lot of improvements. We've got deeper coverage and doing a lot better job of taking care of the people in the community.

Host: That's awesome. Well, Chad, one of the things that Chris just touched on was reducing wait time for MRIs. How about reducing wait times for outpatient studies? I know that's a priority for you as well. So, how have you achieved that to benefit patients?

Chad Roberson, MBA: Access to care is crucially important. And as a service line that supports the other services that the organization offers, it's important that we have the accessibility for those patients to get the services that they need. So, we've expanded the outpatient slots in ultrasound as well as MRI. We've expanded slots in mammography as well. Just to give you perspective, our mammography team did 78% more patients in this last fiscal year than they did the year prior. That is substantial. Most of our service lines seen a growth of around 20-30% in this last year. And that's by adding those access points.

Host: Well, that certainly sounds terrific. And when we talk about these current projects and initiatives, we should also be mindful of the future as well, right? For both of you, how about, on the drawing board, imaging projects you're most excited about coming through at Southeast Georgia Health System? How about you, Chris?

Chris Beasley, MBA: I think our current project for the mammo is the one that's got me most excited today. So, I'm really excited about getting those two rooms online and those two rooms going. In the future, we have some substantial needs. We still have some 20-plus-year-old equipment. One of the things I'd like to get done this year and hoping for approval is a nuclear medicine camera. That is long in the tooth and we need to work on getting that replaced as well.

But our industry, it's very technology-driven and that technology doesn't stop. Every year, there's improvements. Every year, there's new technology to capture. We need to have a steady rhythm of replacing those pieces of equipment just to keep up with the modern healthcare. And so, I'm really excited about our leadership team taking that forward-looking approach at not just this year, but the year after that, the year after that, when we're building our capital budgets. We're actually looking at about three years, so excited about working that process, but really hoping for that nuclear medicine camera this year.

Host: And so, naturally, all this great work has to be paid for. So, Chris, how do you evaluate potential technology investments so that they both serve the hospital and the community as well?

Chris Beasley, MBA: Well, there's a lot to it, actually. Some of the things that you talk about are the pressure on the machines. How many patients are we seeing a day on each machine? And then, how old is the equipment? Is the technology still relevant or have we gotten behind the technology? So, we're looking at the age of the equipment. We're looking at the technology within the equipment. We're looking at the demand on the equipment. We also look at things like reimbursement, how many patients is it going to take for us to have a positive ROI? So, there's a lot of different things, but patient demand and whether or not we're up with the times are probably the two biggest ones.

Host: Well, having heard all of the above, I would imagine some tuning in are wondering how can I schedule an imaging appointment? Chad, how can they do so? And I'm wondering as well, do you have any advice there? Because maybe there's a little trick to the trade, so to speak, right?

Chad Roberson, MBA: So, our wonderful team in Central Scheduling, they can be reached at 912-466-1240. They will take great care of you, get you scheduled for your appointment. Probably the biggest word of advice I would say is follow the instructions that you're given whenever you schedule your appointment. Some of these appointments require a prep prior to your arriving. Some of them require you to not drink prior to your exam. So, follow those instructions, be ready for that test. If you have questions, raise those questions so that you're informed prior to you getting there.

Host: Great advice. And also, Chad, how about where do patients pick up a copy of their imaging report?

Chad Roberson, MBA: Patients can pick up a copy of their imaging reports and images in our medical records department.

Host: And then, finally, to sum up here, gentlemen, I thought it would be good to kind of end where we began. You both talked about being influenced early on to get into this industry. What would each of you say is most rewarding about the work you do on a daily basis? How about you, Chris?

Chris Beasley, MBA: It's all about the people. We do about 250,000 studies a year. We have a lot of opportunity to help people and it's always our heartbeat to do the right thing. Sometimes we miss it, but I'll tell you what, we've got a team here that are committed to looking out for the best interests of the people. They want to serve them. They want to keep them safe. They want to do the right thing. And ultimately, at the end of the day, we want to get a report in that doctor's hand so that doctor can take care of that patient.

Host: How about you, Chad?

Chad Roberson, MBA: You know, I would say for me, as I've transitioned into more of a leadership role, is taking care of my people so that they can care for those people. Making sure that my staff have the tools and equipment that they need to do their job and the resources that they need to do their job is probably one of my most important things and most rewarding things that I've accomplished.

Host: So, really, the bottom line here is we're talking mainly about technology, but once again, we emphasize the people behind that technology as well. Well, folks, we trust you're now more familiar with advancements in medical imaging. Chris, Chad, a pleasure. Keep up the great work and thanks so much again.

Chris Beasley, MBA: Thank you, Joey.

Chad Roberson, MBA: Thank you.

Host: And for more information, please visit sghs.org/imaging. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social media. I'm Joey Wahler. Thanks again for being part of Health Matters from Southeast Georgia Health System.