Abstract
In the post-PACS era, mammography is unique in adopting specialized ergonomic interfaces to improve efficiency in a high volume setting. Chest radiography is also a high volume area of radiology. The authors hypothesize that applying a novel interface for chest radiography interpretation and reporting could create high productivity while maintaining quality. A custom version of the ClearCanvas open source software, EzRad, was created with a workflow re-designed specifically for tuberculosis screening chest radiographs, which utilized standardized computer generated reports. The preliminary reports from 881,792 studies evaluated by radiology residents over a nine-year period were analyzed for productivity as RVU/FTE and compared to the finalized reports from a subspecialty attending chest radiologist for accuracy. Radiology residents were able to produce 7480 RVU/FTE per year in screening chest radiography productivity when using a custom interface at a large academic medical center with a miss rate of 0.1%. Sensitivity was 77% and specificity was 99.9%. An ergonomic user interface allowed high productivity in interpretation of chest radiography for tuberculosis screening while maintaining quality.
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Acknowledgments
This work was made possible by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine by providing the facilities and academic time to perform and publish this research. The authors would like to thank Brigitte Pocta for her help with editing the manuscript.
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Michael Morris and Babak Saboury contributed equally to this work.
Eliot Siegel and Jean Jeudy are co-primary investigators.
Hypothesis: A “computer-aided reporting” mechanism, as defined by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), creating an efficient workflow for high volume tuberculosis (TB) screening chest radiographs can create added value through high productivity and quality.
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Morris, M., Saboury, B., Bandla, N. et al. Computer-Aided Reporting of Chest Radiographs: Efficient and Effective Screening in the Value-Based Imaging Era. J Digit Imaging 30, 589–594 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-017-9952-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-017-9952-y