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Linda DeVee, Leads Radiology Services at Edward-Elmhurst Health

Bringing in the right partner can make a department stronger and more agile.

“When everyone comes together to identify challenges and design solutions, we find the right answer, and that process has been invaluable,” said Linda DeVee, System Director of Radiology at Edward-Elmhurst Hospital 

Linda DeVee is the system director of radiology for Edward-Elmhurst Health, an integrated health system in Illinois. She oversees radiology services at the system’s hospital locations, including Edward-Elmhurst’s nuclear medicine and PET/CT capabilities, as well as 16 off-site locations.

Edward-Elmhurst has been partnering with Accumen for the past two years to improve operational performance across its imaging service line.We recently spoke with Linda about her experience with the Accumen team.

“With Accumen, it really felt like a partnership. Rather than giving us a list of “must-do” changes, the Accumen team presented a range of options and recommendations. They asked questions, and they gave us tools to visualize our data and track the effect of the changes we were making.

We began by piloting changes at our offsites, which helped build our confidence that we could rise to the challenge and make changes that eliminated waste without compromising quality. The kudos and recognition we received as a result of those changes gave us the momentum to look at making changes at our hospitals.

For example, we wanted to be able to offer more diagnostic mammograms to women in our community. By partnering with Accumen, we found ways to use our existing labor more effectively, which ultimately enabled us to achieve our goal. Another example is that by coordinating with emergency department leaders, we were able to reduce the amount of waste caused by the expiration of contingent doses in our nuclear medicine department. Changing our processes resulted in patients receiving the contingent doses they needed for their scans without wasting doses or duplicating effort.