Notes for owners · Industry-Specific Software Guides
How to Automate a Diagnostic or Imaging Centre, Step by Step
Start by putting slot booking, billing and study status on one visit record, then add report templates, sign-off and delivery. GullySystem’s Diagnostic Centre Management Software follows that order for imaging centres. Images stay in the centre’s PACS. A single X-ray room with a short daily list may not need a system yet.
Ganesh HS, Strategy and Technology, GullySystem · · 4 min read
Begin with machines, rooms and the slot book
Most centres keep one diary per machine. Ultrasound has a register, CT has a sheet, and the desk phones across to check a free slot. The first step is a single slot book where each room shows its own hours and its own studies.
Set a slot length for each study type. A whole abdomen takes longer than a single-part X-ray, and a contrast CT needs more time than a plain one. Block service visits and radiologist leave in advance, so nobody is booked into a closed room.
Write the preparation for each study once. Fasting, a full bladder or a recent creatinine value can then go out with every booking.
- Each room linked to the machine inside it
- A slot length for every study type
- Preparation notes approved by the radiologists
- Service and leave blocked ahead of time
Register once and bill from the right rate list
A patient should be registered once and found again by phone number. Each visit then carries its own prescription, referrer, studies and bill. Families often share a number, so the desk picks the right person before billing.
Few centres have one price per scan. Walk-ins pay the counter rate, hospitals and corporates have agreed lists, and camps have their own. Keep each list separate and let the visit pick the one that applies.
Record every discount with a reason and the name of whoever approved it. Part payments stay on the visit as a balance. This is dull work. It is also where daily cash starts to make sense.
Follow each study from scan to signed report
A study passes through the same stages every time: booked, scanned, in draft, signed and delivered. When each stage is marked on screen, the desk can answer a patient’s call without walking to the reporting room.
Technicians see their room’s worklist and confirm preparation and consent before scanning. Radiologists, on site or remote, see the studies assigned to them, oldest first, with urgent ones on top.
Sending the patient list straight to a CT or MRI console needs modality worklist interfacing. That depends on the machine model, so ask about each one.
- Booked, scanned, in draft, signed and delivered
- Worklists by room, modality and radiologist
- Urgent studies marked at booking
- Critical findings flagged and the call logged
Release reports only after sign-off
Report templates per modality and study give radiologists a starting text in their own wording. A typist may prepare a draft from dictation. Only the radiologist signs, and the signed version is locked.
Delivery should follow sign-off and nothing else. Printed reports go with films or a CD. A PDF can go by email, or through the centre’s own WhatsApp Business account where one is set up. A correction is issued as an addendum, and the earlier version stays on record.
Credit visits then roll into monthly statements for each hospital and corporate. Films, contrast and reagents are counted as studies use them.
What to decide first, and when to wait
A single X-ray room with a short daily list and no credit accounts can manage with a register and UPI. Software starts to matter once several machines, remote radiologists and monthly accounts share one desk.
Before choosing, settle a few things in writing. The answers shape the set-up more than any feature list does.
- Which machines and studies go live first
- Who writes and approves each report template
- Which rate lists exist and who may change them
- Which forms each study needs before a scan
- Whose phone number receives the report on a family booking
Study flow worksheet
One page, ruled into a column per stage: booking, registration, billing, scan, draft, sign-off and delivery. For each stage, write who does it today and where the record sits. Gaps between columns show what to set up first.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Does this kind of software replace a PACS?
No. Images are stored and viewed in a PACS or viewer. Centre software books, bills, tracks report status and delivers reports, linking to the images where the PACS allows.
Can our CT or MRI pick up the patient list on its own?
Not on its own. Modality worklist interfacing is scoped machine by machine. Where a console cannot take it, the technician keeps entering the patient there.
What should a centre set up first?
Rooms, machines, studies and slot lengths go in first, then rate lists and report templates. Patients and credit accounts are brought across last, and the desk checks them before the first day.