Photo: Getty Images
Once viewed as a solution for after-hours coverage, teleradiology is rapidly expanding into a critical part of radiology department workflows.
“All radiologists are teleradiologists now,” says Morris Panner, president of Intelerad Medical Systems, a Montreal-based provider of medical imaging software platforms. “The notion that you will not use cloud or distributed technology to enable your practice and your ability to care for people — those days are gone.”
Teleradiology, Panner says, is uniquely positioned to help radiologists accommodate soaring patient volumes and ease anticipated workforce shortages, while also expanding radiology access to underserved regions.
Skyrocketing Utilization
Standard outpatient imaging volume is expected to grow about 10% over the next decade, according to Vizient, with advanced imaging expected to grow by nearly 14% during the same timeframe1.
“We see it literally month over month in the numbers that come through our system,” Panner says. “It’s a real and present phenomenon. And it’s happening right now.”
At the same time, a worldwide shortage of radiologists is expected to hit 42,000 by 20232. Cloud-based teleradiology solutions, Panner says, give radiologists the freedom to route images between one another as if they were sitting side by side, using chat and other tools to communicate and distribute workloads across physical boundaries.
“We held a customer panel recently, and they cited that in some cases, the mismatch of accredited radiologists versus demand was five to one,” Panner says. “You aren’t going to be able to fill enough spots without starting to look at new technologies and approaches.”
Outreach to Rural Areas
A 2023 study quantifies the lack of accredited medical images in U.S. zip codes with extreme levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. Just 21% of those zip codes had access to computed tomography (CT), while only 19% had access to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)3.
One of Intelerad’s earliest successes was using its platform so radiologists at Ballarat Health Services, a healthcare provider in Australia, could serve patients in remote areas. “They serve a population of 230,000 people spread over [about 20 square miles],” Panner says. “It was a dramatically important development for them to be able to use teleradiology solutions to access these patients.”
Panner sees similar possibilities for extending radiology into underserved U.S regions. To show how, he reflects on another conversation at the recent customer panel, where a mammographer shared insights on how teleradiology helped improve the patient experience and the collaboration between doctors and technologists.
“The fact they were able to use remote tools to communicate back and forth really changed the dynamic and made the experience more human, even though it was a technology-driven interaction,” he says. “So, I think we’ll continue to see more rural, remote, underserved areas gain more access by virtue of this.”
Improving Outcomes With AI
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven use cases in teleradiology, Panner says, is already contributing to better patient outcomes. In mammography, AI tools amplify the ability of trained radiologists to identify hard-to-find breast lesions. For stroke, using AI to orchestrate radiology workflows across a distributed environment enables providers to evaluate events and speed time to treatment.
“Tragedy is often driven by delay,” Panner says. “If you can address something more rapidly, you can transform the outcome and turn something that could’ve been a terrible event into a much less significant event and save the patient’s life.”
What’s Next
The rapid maturity of foundational AI models, Panner says, is accelerating the pace of AI and product development in teleradiology. Intelerad’s products, for example, already use algorithms to present the most relevant subsequent study to the radiologist and perform auto-registration to speed measurement capabilities.
Next up, Panner anticipates AI enabling personalized workflow customization, potentially allowing radiologists to improve their work-life balance and reduce symptoms of burnout.
“I think we’re entering an age where, as a radiologist, you can build something for your own use, almost the same way you’d build macros in Excel,” Panner says. “And it’s going to happen within the next 12 months.”
References
1. Vizient, Inc. The Growing Demand for Imaging Services: Key Trends Shaping the Future. Vizient Reports. Published March 12, 2024. Accessed Oct. 20. www.vizientinc.com/insights/reports/diagnostic-imaging/the-growing-demand-for-imaging-services-key-trends-shaping-the-future
2. Ellison A. The Radiologist Shortage, Explained. Becker’s Hospital Review. Published June 18, 2024. Accessed Oct. 20. www.beckershospitalreview.com/radiology/the-radiologist-shortage-explained
3. Jose O, Stoeckl E M, Miles R C, Mango V L, Reid N J, Wagner A S B, Weissman I A, Flores E J, Morla A, Narayan A. The Impact of Extreme Neighborhood Socioeconomic Deprivation on Access to American College of Radiology-Accredited Advanced Imaging Facilities. Radiology. 2023;307(3):222182.
July 16, 2026 
