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Mobile imaging services can greatly benefit nursing homes and assisted living facilities by providing on-site diagnostic imaging which prevents the risk of further injury and inconvenience to the patient. These services are also available on a 24/7 basis and during holidays — so no after-hours facility is required for medical imaging services.

The fact that these services are mobile prevents facilities from sending their own personnel out to transport residents in need of medical imaging to a third-party. Mobile imaging helps to keep the nursing home residents safe and comfortable while avoiding any inconvenience or anxiety on their part.

In this post, we’re going to delve into more detail about the benefits of mobile imaging services for nursing home and assisted living facilities.

 

Positive Impact on Patients and Physicians

With an increase of practices using mobile imaging services has come additional improvements in image quality and ease of equipment transport, with the ability to utilize diagnostic radiology and receive instant results leaving imaging specialists wanting more. The result has been technology that has seen high adoption rates with regard to provider settings, such as nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Additionally, consumers are also helping drive the transition to more advanced forms of imaging.

Across the entire healthcare spectrum, more modalities of care delivery are starting to shift from in-office to mobile. Expanding the abilities of physicians means reaching the eventual goal of lower healthcare costs and better quality of health services to patients who need them the most.

As we alluded to, introducing mobility has a positive impact on both patients and physicians alike, because:

• Mobile imaging provides nearly immediate feedback and results due to the digital technology that displays images within seconds of being taken; this results in better care management and faster treatment strategies for patients.

• Technologists are no longer relegated to developing images in a dark room before handing them off to specialists for reading.

• Everything is conducted on-site and within minutes of a procedure, facilitating any potential need for retakes.

• Being able to reduce the amount of time spent on each patient can yield improved overall care for them. As the mobile capabilities of diagnostic imaging improve, physicians and patients will experience a positive impact on their treatment plans.

Mobile Imaging Services in Nursing Homes: A Systematic Analysis of Benefits

 

Three overarching outcomes can be identified when looking at the benefits mobile services bring to such facilities:

1. There’s a reduced number of hospitalizations and outpatient examinations or treatments.
2. There’s a reduced number of transfers between nursing homes and hospitals.
3. There’s increased access to services such as x-ray examinations.

For residents, there’s a clear reduction in burdensome transfers and waiting times, and adequate treatment and care are — in turn — increased. From a societal perspective, resources are used more efficiently and overall costs are reduced substantially.

In a general sense, mobile imaging services for nursing home residents are of comparable quality to hospital-based examinations and offer clear potential benefits. Mobile imaging reduces transfers to and from a hospital, increases the number of examinations carried out and facilitates timely diagnosis and access to treatments.

The process of transferring elderly, vulnerable adults from a nursing home or assisted living facility to the hospital for medical care can be an emotionally and physically stressful experience. The recent development of modern mobile imaging can help to ease this anxiety by allowing for evaluation in the nursing facility itself.

 

The bottom line, as we see it, is that mobile imaging can be used to examine patients in nursing homes and assisted living facilities at a lower cost than hospital-based imaging, and patients benefit from not having to transfer to a hospital for treatment — thus reducing unwanted anxiety.

And isn’t that really what it’s all about? When your nursing home’s residents are in need of medical imaging, contact us to make sure they receive the most comfortable, convenient imaging possible!