The Imaging Lifecycle: Workflow, Bottlenecks, and Safety

This four-part, after-hours series introduces imaging informatics and its role in modern medicine, helping students and trainees understand how imaging data, technology, and clinical workflows come together to improve patient care, while also highlighting emerging innovations and potential career paths in the field. Register for each session separately. 

April 20 | Session 1

What is Clinical & Imaging Informatics

April 27 | Session 2

How Clinical Data Moves: The Infrastructure Behind Modern Imaging

May 4 | Session 3

The Imaging Lifecycle: Workflow, Bottlenecks, and Safety

May 11 | Session 4

The Future of AI – Algorithms and Data Sets

Session 3 will explore the imaging lifecycle as a safety-critical workflow through a practical, discussion-driven lens. This conversation is geared toward undifferentiated medical students, trainees, and residents who want to better understand imaging informatics and its impact on clinical care. 

Each stage—ordering, scheduling, protocoling, acquisition, interpretation, communication, and follow-up—will be mapped to identify where delays, variability, and diagnostic risk emerge. Informatics tools such as clinical decision support, structured reporting, workflow analytics, and closed-loop communication systems will be examined as ways to reduce diagnostic errors and operational inefficiencies, while demonstrating how informatics-driven redesign can improve turnaround times, reduce burnout, and enhance patient outcomes. 

Objectives

1. Map the full imaging lifecycle and identify high-risk transition points 
2. Recognize common operational bottlenecks that contribute to diagnostic delay 
3. Evaluate the role of clinical decision support in improving imaging appropriateness and safety 
4. Distinguish between high-value automation and sources of alert fatigue 
5. Propose workflow improvement strategies grounded in informatics principles