Enterprise Imaging Progress Takes IT, Radiology & Ology-Specific Informaticists All Working Together, Says Ram Chadalavada, MD, Vice Chair of Radiology Informatics, University of Cincinnati & UC Health

In this interview, Dr. Ram Chadalavada, Vice Chair of Radiology Informatics at the University of Cincinnati & UC Health, discusses the evolving field of enterprise imaging. He explains his role in managing imaging data across various medical specialties, emphasizing the importance of consolidating imaging data from different departments, such as radiology, cardiology, and pathology. Dr. Chadalavada highlights the benefits of seamless data integration for both clinicians and patients, improving communication and patient care. He also underscores the need for standardized imaging systems, advocating for leadership in informatics within departments to facilitate collaboration and enhance the overall healthcare ecosystem. The discussion touches on the complexity of transitioning healthcare systems toward unified, organization-wide imaging strategies.

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Anthony: Welcome to healthsystemsCIO’s Interview with Dr. Ram Chadalavada, Vice Chair of Radiology Informatics at the University of Cincinnati & UC Health. I’m Anthony Guerra, Founder and Editor-in-Chief. Dr. Chadalavada, thanks for joining me.

Dr. Chadalavada: Anthony, thank you so much for having me. It’s a privilege and a great opportunity to speak with you and colleagues everywhere.

Anthony: Excellent. Thank you very much. Let’s start off. Do you want to tell me a little bit about your organization and your role or your roles?

Dr. Chadalavada: Absolutely. I think having some context, clinically, what I do is also very relevant to this conversation. I’m a vascular interventional radiologist. I serve as a Vice Chair of Radiology and Informatics. At an institutional level, I work very closely with Dr. Frank Fernandez, the Chief Medical Information Officer, who also refers to our Chief Health Digital Officer Umberto Tachinardi. Umberto works with the hospital system and is from the University of Cincinnati & UC Health where I practice clinical medicine. He also serves in an informatics role.

Anthony: Very good. You’re with both the University of Cincinnati & UC Health?

Dr. Chadalavada: That’s correct. The hospital system is recognized as UC Health. The academic entity is University of Cincinnati. We’re a robust academic center with residency, fellowship programs in various specialties, a college of medicine, training medical students and biomedical engineering from the undergraduate level. This is a very robust ecosystem here.

Anthony: Excellent. We’re going to talk about enterprise imaging today. What I’m hearing is more of a journey and a direction rather than a final end state. For example, if you’re implementing Epic there are real milestones where you’re done, like stages but there’s definitely hard milestones.

Enterprise imaging seems to be more of many different ways people are trying to get there, almost different strategies, different goals for the journey. But there probably are some co-modalities on what people are trying to achieve. If you want to give me your vision about what we mean when we say enterprise imaging as opposed to where we’ve come from.

Dr. Chadalavada: I think a very simplistic approach to enterprise imaging – basically, radiology is one of the biggest gorillas related to enterprise imaging or imaging. But the way I see it is more data, it’s our ability to consolidate imaging data from various sources across the health system and any of the various entities that practice utilizing imaging. We have radiology which is a big gorilla but we have cardiology,