Dr. Ashutosh Pawale

Co-Founder & Consultant

The covid pandemic has brought about a serious transformation in people's mindset, wherein they are not only more health conscious but also have a heightened awareness about the importance of preventive care and early diagnosis. Despite lagging in terms of tech adoption until recently, the Indian healthcare ecosystem has undergone a sea change lately and is wholeheartedly embracing technology to enhance its overall process efficiencies. While recent tech advancements in radiology has enabled clinicians to provide better diagnosis and treatment in critical cases, the presence of these highly sophisticated centres only in cities and urban areas has further stressed upon the demand for efficient teleradiology services, especially in a geographically vast country like India.

As per a recent study, the Indian teleradiology market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.7 percent and be worth $129 million by 2030. One company that has been making strong headwinds in such a dynamic and hyper-competitive market is Radever Teleradiology. With offices in Pune, Latur and Bagalkot, Radever was started in 2010 by Dr. Ashutosh Pawale and Dr. Jayashree Patil with a vision to provide top quality radiology services accessible to all at affordable rates specially to tier two-three cities. Today, the company has earned the reputation of being one of the most trusted and reliable teleradiology partner for numerous hospitals and healthcare organizations in South India.

“Unlike earlier times, radiology is no more an industry where only individuals from radiology background own the business. Today, owing to the heightened demand of quality radiology services, we are seeing an increasing number of people from non-medical background open radiology centres, making it a very highly competitive market. While there are radiology centres even in small Taluks today, only a minuscule portion of them are capable of providing reports for joints, brain MRI and other complex cases by local or in house radiologists.

Teleradiology extends the reach of radiologists, enabling them to provide services to remote or underserved areas. It also allows diagnostic centres in those areas to access highly skilled and specialized radiologists, regardless of geographical location. This capability has been a significant factor in the expansion of teleradiology services, particularly in countries like India where healthcare access in rural or remote regions is limited”, says Dr. Ashutosh, expressing his thoughts on the current market scenario for teleradiology.
 

Pioneering Nextgen Teleradiology Services

As a teleradiology services provider in India today, Radever majorly focuses not only on diagnosis but effective communication of the diagnosis to the concerned clinician (doctor)+ by providing detailed reports of CT Scan, MRI reports across gastrointestinal, pulmonary, musculoskeletal (imaging of joints such as knee, shoulder and others) and neuroradiology areas. Additionally, the company also provides a unique service called Annotation & Image Marking (AIM), wherein Radever’s team of experienced radiologists carefully analyze the scanned image, provide an explanatory or descriptive information along with it, and most importantly, highlight the pathology (area of abnormality) with an arrow or circle so that both doctors and patients can easily understand interpret the reports. For instance, by clearly pin-pointing the position of the appendix in our appendicitis scan reports, pointing out the precise site of perforation of bowel we are enabling surgeons to better plan the surgical procedure in terms of making incision and cutting-out the appendix without having to search through the abdominal cavity for it. Similarly for cancer patients AIM assists a doctor to assess the progress of a disease at single glance.

“Focused on facilitating acute care decisions that allow more optimal patient care, our teleradiology services increase the productivity and profitability of multidisciplinary healthcare teams. With an advanced digital radiology system and the most talented radiologists in the country on-board, we can provide you with superior, fully customized teleradiology services. Our centralized, full-service approach to teleradiology provides on-demand reporting for multi-location facilities”, adds Dr. Ashutosh.

Standing a Class Apart through Subspeciality Expertise

Clearly understanding the importance of turnaround time of radiology reports especially in emergency cases, Radever has gained widespread recognition within the healthcare community for providing reports in shorted time frames possible - being capable of providing stroke reports within just 10-20 minutes standing as a strong testament for this. Additionally, the company follows a sub-speciality approach to providing services, wherein every radiologist working at Radever possesses vast knowledge and experience in any of the sub-specialties such as gastrointestinal, pulmonary, musculoskeletal joints, neuroradiology, or any other. This has helped the organization immensely in providing its AIM service and facilitating hassle-free diagnosis and treatment by doctors.

Reminiscing an instance where his company’s subspecialty approach proved highly beneficial for the patient, Dr. Ashutosh proudly says, “A 22 year old female with severe headache for six months who was diagnosed as meningitis and subdural collections at three different places and was about to undergo brain surgery approached us with her scan images. We analyzed them carefully and diagnosed it as Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension – a condition where the fluid pressure inside the skull drops below normal. The patient was immediately scanned again to detect the CSF leakage, which was sealed through an intervention. She recovered completely without having to undergo unnecessary surgery or any serious complications”. 

With a vision to offer nothing short of the ‘best’ quality teleradiology services, Radever educates its team members with the recent tech advancements, market trends and new diseases by conducting periodic training programs and CMEs which helps them habitual to go beyond obvious and pick up tiny clues inside the images. Currently, Radever caters to over 30 hospitals and imaging centres across India (Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, West Bengal and Uttarakhand), three hospitals in Africa and one hospital in Columbia. Till date, it has successfully reported over half a million scans with an average report accuracy rate of 98.6 percent – which is one of the highest in the teleradiology space worldwide today. Owing to such impeccable track record and industry-best practices, Radever is well on its way towards fulfilling its mission of providing rural and community hospitals with the same high standard of radiology care as in big/urban hospitals, at affordable rates.