New Director for Radiology at North Country Hospital

“It is great to be part of a progressive department that is competitive and staying current with the times,” states Pete Kelly, North Country Hospital’s new Director of Diagnostic Imaging.

“People will tell you that people are nice here, but until you have lived it, you don't believe it, and people really are nice here.”

These sincere words of praise for the people who make up the North Country Health System family come from Peter Kelly, North Country's new Director of Diagnostic Imaging. Joining us in early September, Peter's days are kept busy managing a staff of 24 people. He also schedules the Locums, Radiologists who subcontract with the hospital to read x-rays. Recently, Pete and the hospital received great news in that the department expects to have a new Radiologist, Dr. Perlin, starting in the beginning of 2008. An in-house Radiologist will be a major improvement in the quality of the department.

In addition to staffing duties, Peter must look at the department's equipment needs, doing research on different vendors and specific equipment to make sure that North Country Hospital offers the highest quality service for the least amount of money.

Updating and writing new exam protocols also falls under Peter's job description. It is his hope to get the whole radiology department compliant with ACR (American College of Radiology) standards just as Mammography is. Policies and procedures in radiology must be frequently revisited to ensure that patients receive the safest and most complete care possible in the Diagnostic Imaging Department and “being compliant” means that you have the best procedures and protocols in place.

Diagnostic Imaging is a multi-modality department that we used to know simply as “x-ray.” Diagnostic Imaging includes Nuclear Medicine, Ultrasound, Echo, CT Scan, Mammography, Bone Density Scan, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and diagnostic X-ray. The people who work in the Diagnostic Imaging Department must be highly specialized. Many of them are “cross-trained,” or trained to work in more than one area. In order to be cross-trained, a person must take classes, get in many training hours for each specialty, and pass licensing Boards in order to be registered to work in a specific area.

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