Emergency Teleradiology-Past, Present, and, Is There a Future?

Abstract

Emergency radiology has evolved into a distinct radiology subspecialty requiring a specialized skillset to make a timely and accurate diagnosis of acutely and critically ill or traumatized patients. The need for emergency and odd hour radiology coverage fuelled the growth of internal and external teleradiology and the “nighthawk” services to meet the increasing demands from all stakeholders and support the changing trends in emergency medicine and trauma surgery inclined toward increased reliance on imaging. However, the basic issues of increased imaging workload, radiologist demand-supply mismatch, complex imaging protocols are only partially addressed by teleradiology with the promise of workload balancing by operations to scale. Incorporation of artificially intelligent tools helps scale manifold by the promise of streamlining the workflow, improved detection and quantification as well as prediction. The future of emergency teleradiologists and teleradiology groups is entwined with their ability to incorporate such tools at scale and adapt to newer workflows and different roles. This agility to adopt and adapt would determine their future.