Radiology workflow-based monitoring dashboard in a heterogeneous environment

Radiology departments could benefit from the digital dashboards which integrate and visualize information reflecting workflow state. However, the heterogeneous environment in radiology prevents an integrated overall view of the process. The objective of this study is to design and develop a workflow-based dashboard in a heterogeneous environment to help the radiology administrators and managers monitor the state of the work flow in real time. Firstly, we propose to use workflow management method to implement the system integration. Then a real-time monitoring dashboard which analyzed data from workflow management system integrated with information in other radiology systems is designed and developed. A use case implementation is carried out in Huzhou Central hospital of China. The dashboard is well accepted by the radiology administrators and managers in the hospital who lack real-time workflow monitoring tools in a heterogeneous environment. This work presents a new perspective on radiology department management, and can be viewed as an initial endeavor for introducing workflow management technology in healthcare.