Patients prefer radiology reports that are structured, more challenging to read
Patients prefer imaging reports that are structured and more challenging to read, according to new survey data shared Oct. 21 in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology.
The 21st Century Cures Act and its call to end info-blocking has placed increased scrutiny around the consumer-friendliness of radiologists’ work. Experts with the Mayo Clinic and Loma Linda University Medical Center recently set out to explore what patients want in a radiology report. Their analysis included nearly 500 responses from individuals treated at LLUMC between 2019 to 2021.
Most patients (78%) rated their CT or MRI radiology report highly. Across the study responses, structured reporting was “significantly” associated with higher ratings, along with lower Flesch Reading Ease scores.
“Despite low reading ease, patients preferred more difficult-to-read content in the finding section of the radiology reports,” corresponding author Nelly Tan, MD, with the Department of Radiology at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, and colleagues wrote in the take-home-points section of the study. “Patients prefer greater detail in the reports, suggesting that having details would allow the patients to seek more information about diseases or findings and/or adequate social support.”
Patients treated at Loma Linda were asked to complete a two-question survey embedded in the patient portal after undergoing advanced imaging. It included a five-star scale to rate quality, an open-text box and the query: How helpful was the report? Researchers assessed each report for readability and brevity, and they also performed quantitative analysis on poorly (fewer than three stars) and highly (more than three stars) rated reports.
More highly rated reports were in a structured format than not (93.5% vs. 6.5%). They also had a lower reading-ease score than poorly rated reports (19.6% vs. 28.9%), the authors reported. However, no significant differences were observed between the number of words or words per sentence in the report findings section.
“There is a complex interaction between patient comprehensibility and information provided in the radiology reports,” Tan and co-authors noted. “AI-enabled software may bridge the balance of radiologists’ workflow with patients’ needs to comprehend their reports and translate complex medical jargon into lay language, improving health literacy.”
Read more in CPDR at the link below.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.