Patient-Centered Radiology

Stanford Radiology provides patient-centric imaging services using state-of-the-art technology at each of five distinct imaging locations. These include Stanford Medicine Imaging Center, Palo Alto; Stanford Medicine Outpatient Center, Redwood City; Blake Wilbur Outpatient Clinic; Stanford Hospital – Department of Radiology; and Stanford Advanced Medicine Center/Cancer Center. Innovative approaches to the design of the physical facilities, always with the patient's experience in mind, have led to improvements garnering the highest in patient-satisfaction ratings. These improvements have included the addition of specialized staffing, and expedited scheduling, insurance approvals, and report turnaround times. To ensure that our patients receive the highest standard of care, our specialized staffing includes, for example, the CT protocol technologist, whose main responsibility is to lower, standardize, and monitor CT dose at all of our CT scanner locations. In FY 2011, and continuing into 2012, we are engaged in the testing of new methods to improve the patient experience by studying the impact of radiologist-patient communication on patient care. These types of studies are part of our over-arching goal to advance personalized medicine, and increase the interaction between radiologists and their patients.