A recent Radiology Business article highlights the continuing saga: radiologists, technologists, physicists, and nuclear medicine professionals are urging federal leaders to fix image sharing because the current process is costly, inefficient, and outdated.
(Say it louder for the folks in the back!)
Whether you’re a patient or a healthcare professional, anyone who has tried to share medical imaging studies knows the frustration is real.
Studies don’t arrive when expected, if they arrive at all. Images show up on CDs that need to be uploaded manually or aren’t compatible. Patient data doesn’t always match, so someone has to step in and fix it. While all of that is happening, radiologists are waiting and schedules start to slip.
For healthcare professionals, this means constant interruptions and time spent on tasks that shouldn’t exist anymore. For patients, it can mean delays in diagnosis, repeat imaging, and a care experience that feels beyond frustrating.
Most organizations already have the right systems in place. PACS, RIS, and EHR platforms aren’t the problem. The issue is how those systems work together, or more often, how they don’t.
Image sharing becomes a patchwork of manual steps instead of something that just works.
The good news is that this is finally starting to change.
The focus is shifting toward fixing the workflow itself, not just moving images from one place to another. Solutions like InteleShare are part of that shift, using automation and real-time exchange to reduce manual work, improve interoperability, and make imaging accessible when and where it’s needed.
It’s not a complete overnight fix, but it’s a meaningful step toward a future where image sharing feels less like a daily struggle and more like a seamless part of patient care.
