The Stanford Hospital and Clinics Digital Image Library

The digital image specialists at the SHC Digital Image Library have a cumulative work experience of over 164 years. The specialists on staff and their years of service to our Department are as follows: Carla (over 33 years); Deborah, Digital Image Library Supervisor, (over 25 years); Greg (over 20 years); Jack (over 16 years); Jose (over 16 years); Peter (over 13 years); Ofelia (over 11 years); Lorna (over 6 years); Louie (over 6 years); Orwson (over 5 years); LaKitra "Kiki" (over 5 years); Nancy (over 5 years); and Kimberly "Kim" (over 3 years).

Our team provides a myriad of services for our Department as well as all other Hospital and clinical departments. These duties include processing requisition forms and sending patient tracking forms to the reading area for radiologists to dictate. Daily reports are utilized by the digital image library staff to insure all imaging exams have been dictated in a timely manner to meet departmental standards. The staff also import outside images from films or CDs into the Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) for comparison purposes. Patient radiology exams are prepared in the format of a CD for case managers and facilities external to Stanford when a patient has been discharged. The staff pulls and delivers exam studies for patient appointments at 10 different clinics. The number of clinic "pulls" has decreased from 20 clinics down to 10 clinics since the introduction of the PACS system.

In addition, the digital image specialists answer phones and manually compile exam folders on the PACS system for the musculoskeletal (MSK) section as well as the chest section. The transcription quality assurance (QA) duties are performed on a daily basis through the combined efforts of the outside transcription company, the radiologist, and the digital image library staff. At least four of the imaging studies that the staff processes on a daily basis are for law suits. They are divided into two categories: litigation cases, which implicate the Hospital as a defendant who is being sued by a patient, and subpoenas, which are used for evidence in a lawsuit and do not directly involve the Hospital as a defendant.

Most of the exam requests processed by the Digital Image Library staff are in digital format, but plain film copies are made upon request.