Understanding Workload Assignments
Watch the videoIn a reading slot assignment workflow, the IAE uses workload metrics to ensure that the assignment of orders is equally and fairly balanced among available radiologists.
In order for the IAE to balance the order assignment workload effectively, radiologists must be logged in to InteleViewer and occupying their reading slots for the majority of their work shifts.
These examples illustrate a few situations that show how the IAE ensures that the assigned workload is equally and fairly balanced among available radiologists.
- Dr. Bowlan, who is occupying the Body1 reading slot, logs out of InteleViewer for a long period of time and then logs back in and selects the Body1 reading slot. Since his workload is behind that of other radiologists, the IAE assigns orders progressively to Dr. Bowlan to balance the workload.
- Dr. Simpson, who is occupying the Mammo2 reading slot, which has a workload value of 8.4 RVUs, logs out of InteleViewer. The IAE saves Dr. Simpson's workload information. After two hours, Dr. Simpson logs back in to InteleViewer and selects the Mammo2 reading slot. The IAE will account for Dr. Simpson's assigned workload deficit for all subsequent routine mammography order assignments until the deficit is resolved.
- Dr. Gordon's workload is ahead of all the other radiologists. He leaves for a meeting and after one hour returns from the meeting. He is still ahead of all the other radiologists. The IAE continues to assign orders to the other radiologists to balance the workload.
To ensure that the workload is divided equally and fairly, the IAE uses the cumulative assigned reading slot workload, the instantaneous workload, and the routine workload limit. All of the workloads are measured in Relative Value Units (RVUs) by default. To change the workload unit, contact the Intelerad Technical SupportCenter.
These examples illustrate a few situations of how assigned workload levels are accumulated and maintained by reading slots:
- The IAE assigns a brain MRI order to Dr. Walters who is occupying the Neuro1 reading slot. The Neuro1 reading slot will accumulate the workload associated with the brain MRI order. If a technologist reassigns the brain MRI order to Dr. Boland, who is occupying the Neuro2 reading slot, then the cumulative workload for the brain MRI order will be transferred to the Neuro2 reading slot.
- Dr. Jones who is occupying the Mammo3 reading slot logs out of InteleViewer. Dr. Williams logs in to InteleViewer and selects the Mammo3 reading slot. Dr. Williams will be recognized as having the cumulative workload level associated with the Mammo3 reading slot for assignment purposes. If Dr. Jones is not logged in to InteleViewer and has not selected an available reading slot, then any orders manually assigned to Dr. Jones by a technologist will not be accounted for with respect to cumulative workload levels.
The IAE assigns a routine order to the radiologist whose cumulative workload level would yield the most improvement to the overall cumulative assigned reading slot workload balance across all eligible radiologists.
If several reading slots have partially overlapping reading group associations, the IAE uses this criteria to balance the cumulative assigned reading slot workload levels across all eligible radiologists.
Within an equivalent group of reading slots, the IAE balances the total work assigned to each occupied reading slot by distributing routine orders based on cumulative assigned reading slot workload levels.
If a radiologist dictates an order that is assigned to another radiologist or reserves an order for another radiologist, the cumulative assigned reading slot workload will not be transferred to him or her.
Orders manually assigned by a technologist are counted toward the cumulative assigned reading slot workload levels if the assigned radiologist is occupying a reading slot for the current work shift when the order is manually assigned.