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The Imaging Practice
At the University of Georgia Veterinary Teaching Hospital, diagnostic imaging plays a critical role in supporting specialty veterinary care, clinical collaboration, and education. The hospital’s imaging service operates within a fast-paced academic environment that combines advanced patient care with hands-on resident training and research initiatives.
The imaging team includes faculty radiologists, radiology residents, specialty veterinary techs, and dedicated PACS/RIS administrators.
The Problem
At the time, the organization relied on a legacy university veterinary information system. The platform wasn’t browser-based, relied heavily on manual input, and was disconnected from Radiology’s reporting and dictation processes. Additionally, the hospital didn’t utilize a RIS solution for workflow management or study reporting. Their workflow was exclusively paper-driven.
Clinicians submitted imaging requests through the legacy system, while reporting workflows occurred separately using dictation software and Microsoft Word documents. This process could no longer support growing operational and academic demands.
In 2013, the hospital began evaluating new PACS and RIS solutions. They needed a RIS vendor willing to adapt their platform to veterinary-specific requirements, including support for animal signalment fields such as breed, species, sex, weight, and age.
The academic workflow added another layer of complexity. Radiology residents required a workflow structure that could support multiple levels of review while maintaining accountability and report accuracy.
The Solution Needed to be…
Veterinary Specific
to support animal signalment fields and specific workflows.
Resident-Friendly
so residents could complete preliminary interpretations before faculty radiologists finalized reports.
Flexible
and able to adapt to specific and changing requirements.
The Solution
“UGA needed a solutions provider who was willing to build very specific pieces to accommodate both academic and veterinary workflows, which we were happy to do. In collaboration with their team, we developed what became known as our Q/ris VETworkflow™ and resident workflow modules —solutions built specifically to support complex educational and clinical imaging environments.”
– Roy Vincent R.T.(R), VP of Sales, medQ
Working closely with the UGA team, medQ implemented a customized veterinary imaging workflow:
- Q/ris VETworkflow™ centralized scheduling, order management, accession tracking, and workflow coordination within a single veterinary-specific platform. It also supported species-specific demographic and signalment data, reduced manual entry through structured workflow controls, and integrated with their new EMR (VetView).
- ReportingPlus™ enabled radiologists to create, edit, and finalize reports within a unified workflow. This improved consistency, accuracy, and turnaround time while supporting the hospital’s reporting standards.
- Integrated Dictation provided embedded voice dictation and editing tools, allowing radiologists to generate reports within the imaging workflow.
- Resident Review Workflow enabled resident preliminary reporting with structured Attending Radiologist review and sign-off. This customized workflow improved traceability, consistency, and teaching efficiency.
The Results
medQ improved workflow coordination, reporting efficiency, and operational consistency. By consolidating imaging, modality worklist, dictation, and reporting into a single synchronized environment, the hospital eliminated many of the disconnected and paper-based processes that previously slowed operations.
As staffing dynamics evolved over time, medQ also helped the hospital maintain continuity by supporting remote collaboration workflows with outside radiologists. External radiologists could review studies remotely, virtually collaborate with residents over the internet, and finalize reports within the same integrated environment.
More than a decade after implementation, medQ continues to support new integrations and continuously enhance the platform. The partnership has helped the hospital to meet the changing needs of veterinary imaging operations.