Standardized reporting templates reduce residents' on-call turnaround times
Reporting turnaround times for on-call radiology residents can be significantly improved with the help of standardized reporting templates, new data suggest.
A new study published in Emergency Radiology details how standardized reporting templates can improve on-call radiology residents’ workflows in cases of suspected spinal cord compression or cauda equina compression, both of which require prompt and accurate diagnosis to appropriately treat. There has been some debate among the imaging industry as to whether standardized templates help or hinder workflows, but this latest data suggest that they may be especially beneficial for on-call residents. Residents who utilized them for after-hours MRI studies on patients with suspected spinal compression saw a significant reduction in their reporting turnaround times.
Researchers retrospectively reviewed how the implementation of standardized reporting templates affected residents’ turnaround times and accuracy for 266 after-hours spinal MRIs. TATs were determined based on the time that lapsed between the last image acquisition by the MRI scanner and when the resident entered their preliminary interpretation, while accuracy was gauged by comparing their initial interpretations to the final neuroradiology attending interpretation.
Preliminary interpretation turnaround times decreased from 54 minutes prior to the introduction of standardized reporting templates to 47 minutes post-implementation. Turnaround times of 75 minutes or longer also were significantly less frequent after these templates were deployed. Importantly, the quicker availability of readers’ interpretations did not come at the expense of decreased diagnostic accuracy; detection rates for suspected spinal cord compression and cauda equina compression were unchanged before and after templates became available.
“A structured reporting template allows quicker [report turnaround times] and reduces the frequency of long delays in on-call radiology residents’ preliminary interpretation of MRIs performed for [suspected spinal cord compression/cauda equina compression] while maintaining high accuracy,” corresponding author Pritesh Mehta, MD, with the department of radiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues concluded.
Read more about the findings here.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.