Working From Home-Or Not.

Abstract

Many of your radiologists have been reading cases from home over the last few months. Now, the vast majority of them would like to make this a permanent change. However, there is a definite need for on-site radiologists in several areas including interventional radiology procedures, fluoroscopy, and so on. How would you handle this? I am very much in favor of remote reading. We started this practice before coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as part of our wellness initiative, and approximately 25% of our faculty participated. They appreciated the increased autonomy and flexible working hours and felt that it improved work-life balance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 70% of our faculty have occasionally read from home, and I anticipate a large majority will want to continue this practice. It is important to have an appropriate number of radiologists on site to interact with referring physicians, participate in interdisciplinary conferences, preform procedures, and teach our trainees. With a large practice like ours, this is relatively easy. There is no need to have all of our 232 radiologists on site each day. Allowing each to read from home 1 or 2 days per week allows for improved faculty morale with no negative effects on the value radiologists bring to our patients or referring physicians. Our practice is a blended on-site–off-site model, where the relative amounts can be balanced as needed. The ability to read off site equips us with the flexibility to quickly handle volume surges and to provide improved subspecialty coverage, day and night. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our model flexed to a relatively higher level of off-site reading. Once COVID-19 is behind us, we can expect a return to the familiar competitive business of medicine. Then, it is imperative we re-establish our pre-COVID-19 on-site–off-site balance. Our hospital presence is essential to sustain our contracts, build our practice, be an influential part of our medical communities, and secure our future. Recently, I read an old Harvard Business Review Leadership article by Rosabeth Moss Kanter titled “The First Secret of Success Is Showing Up” [1Kanter R.M. The first secret of success is showing up. Harv Bus Rev.https://hbr.org/2013/02/the-first-secret-of-success-is.htmlGoogle Scholar]. She makes a powerful argument for the power of in-person, on-the-ground presence to share knowledge, build relationships, show caring, and drive success and survival in the business world. It is a lesson wisely transferred to the practice of radiology. Telecommuting provides radiologists the opportunity to save travel time in going back and forth to work and allows radiologists to spend more time at home. Telecommuting may potentially decrease radiologist resistance to taking a late shift while at home. Telecommuting could also be an attractive perk for individuals with childcare responsibilities, notably part-time women radiologists, as long as they are not overloaded at home. It is easy to imagine a frustrated individual reading out while also caretaking at home. The onsite presence of radiologists contributes to the sense of team, whether with nonradiology clinicians in a consulting capacity or with technologists, nurses, or front desk staff in solidarity. Many radiology nonphysicians also wish they could telecommute, although they are deprived of the opportunity. A gradient of resentment including nontelecommuters could develop if a teleradiology strategy is not carefully constructed and deployed. There are clear advantages and disadvantages to telecommuting, demanding deliberate and thoughtful utilization. We plan on some reductions in on-site staffing, but we will provide the necessary on-site staffing to cover what is required. These staffing changes will allow for more group members to do home remote readings, which should increase efficiency and radiologist report turn-around times. Because of increased capacity of group practice members to read from home, we are able to make these changes in our daily workflow coverages. With fewer radiologists on site, there is a danger that I am concerned about after hearing from others: If there is no radiologist on site, and one is needed for a procedure, such as an lumbar puncture, abscess drainage, or critical procedure, such on-site coverage must occur. We must be very careful to not fall into “risky” behavior with a borderline response for requests for any on-site studies.