A Checklist to Improve Patient Safety in General Radiology

Background: The role of checklist is to identify and classify the risks to the safety. Aim: The purpose of this study is to improve patient safety in radiology department. Methods: The study population included patients of both gender of age group 20-50 years. Overall patients included were 50. The data was collected on daily basis from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022. Result: The result involves the positive result with significance level of 0.05 which clearly proves that patient safety was improves by using checklist. Conclusion: This study proves that patient safety can be improves by using safety checklist and Chi- square test applied for the results

Structured reporting of computed tomography in the staging of colon cancer: a Delphi consensus proposal

Background: Structured reporting (SR) in radiology is becoming increasingly necessary and has been recognized recently by major scientific societies. This study aims to build structured CT-based reports in colon cancer during the staging phase in order to improve communication between the radiologist, members of multidisciplinary teams and patients. Materials and methods: A panel of expert radiologists, members of the Italian Society of Medical and Interventional Radiology, was established. A modified Delphi process was used to develop the SR and to assess a level of agreement for all report sections. Cronbach’s alpha (Cα) correlation coefficient was used to assess internal consistency for each section and to measure quality analysis according to the average inter-item correlation. Results: The final SR version was built by including n = 18 items in the “Patient Clinical Data” section, n = 7 items in the “Clinical Evaluation” section, n = 9 items in the “Imaging Protocol” section and n = 29 items in the “Report” section. Overall, 63 items were included in the final version of the SR. Both in the first and second round, all sections received a higher than good rating: a mean value of 4.6 and range 3.6–4.9 in the first round; a mean value of 5.0 and range 4.9–5 in the second round. In the first round, Cronbach’s alpha (Cα) correlation coefficient was a questionable 0.61. In the first round, the overall mean score of the experts and the sum of scores for the structured report were 4.6 (range 1–5) and 1111 (mean value 74.07, STD 4.85), respectively. In the second round, Cronbach’s alpha (Cα) correlation coefficient was an acceptable 0.70. In the second round, the overall mean score of the experts and the sum of score for structured report were 4.9 (range 4–5) and 1108 (mean value 79.14, STD 1.83), respectively. The overall mean score obtained by the experts in the second round was higher than the overall mean score of the first round, with a lower standard deviation value to underline greater agreement among the experts for the structured report reached in this round. Conclusions: A wide implementation of SR is of critical importance in order to offer referring physicians and patients optimum quality of service and to provide researchers with the best quality data in the context of big data exploitation of available clinical data. Implementation is a complex procedure, requiring mature technology to successfully address the multiple challenges of user-friendliness, organization and interoperability

Variation in the length and structure of reports written by reporting radiographers: A retrospective study.

IntroductionThe literature suggests that there is variation in various features of the written radiology report for a range of body areas and imaging modalities. The retrospective study presented here aims to determine if similar variation is demonstrated in a group of 5 reporting radiographers in a UK NHS Trust.MethodsFull reports for 1530 knee radiographic examinations performed from accident and emergency referrals were extracted for a 12-month period from a Radiology Information System (RIS) into Excel. Copied into Word, the word count function was used for each report and the number of words and characters (without spaces) was returned into Excel. Average word count and word length per report, by radiographer, were calculated for the following sections of the report: report title, main body and signature. SPSS was used to perform inferential statistical analysis.ResultsA wide range in the maximum and minimum average report lengths (60.88 v 17.83 words) was demonstrated. Statistically significant differences (p ConclusionVariation in report structure and length, as well as word length, was seen, comparable to studies of radiologist reports. Further research is required to investigate the drivers of this variation, and determine if there is any clinical significance

Structured reporting in cardiovascular computed tomography

While investigation techniques and image modalities become more and more advanced, radiology reports have remained in their classic form for the past decades. Structured reporting has shown its potential to increase the clarity, correctness, confidence, concision, completeness, consistency, communication, consultation and standardization of radiology reports. The increased report quality can mostly be attributed to a complete checklist like approach, standardized vocabulary through RadLex and RSNA provided templates which can be adapted to address very specific inquiries. Especially the interdisciplinary approach necessary to design and adapt those templates can ensure that all therapy influencing criteria are evaluated in the report. This may lead to a different therapy and outcome. Structured reporting also harbors great teaching opportunities, such as a checklist-like approach for young radiology residents and an image database of pathological findings. With a large analyzable database of reports, a statistical analysis becomes possible, which can e.g. lead to increasingly better screening algorithms. Technological challenges however, different data formats, varying degrees of quality of structured reporting systems and the concerns about work flow efficiency and report rigidity remain difficulties of structured reporting itself. Despite of this it also provides many future possibilities such as the implementation of medical guide lines into the report format, multi media reports, evaluation of radiation dose, management of follow-up appointments, automatic invoice and reimbursement systems and the improvement of data mining. Given the potential of structured reporting and its impact on patient care, we decided to evaluate its so far unknown benefit for patients with acute PE and PAD. For patients with APE, the structured reports were evaluated by two pulmonologists and two general internists and compared to the reports from the clinical routine of the same patient group. While all four referring clinicians perceived the structured CTPA reports as superior in clarity, only the pulmonologists found additional benefit in content and clinical utility. The structured reports did not alter patients’ management in patients with acute PE significantly. In the study concerning patients with diagnosed or suspected PAD the structured reports (run-off CTA/ lower extremities) were evaluated by two vascular surgeons and two vascular medicine specialists. The results showed, both groups regarded structured reports as superior in clarity, completeness, clinical relevance and usefulness. Especially vascular medicine specialists seemed to appreciate the structured reporting format. As in our PE study, structured reporting did not seem to alter further testing or therapy for the patients included in our study. Both studies demonstrate that referring clinicians prefer structured reporting of cardiovascular CT examinations over conventional reports

Translation of quantitative MRI analysis tools for clinical neuroradiology application

Quantification of imaging features can assist radiologists by reducing subjectivity, aiding detection of subtle pathology, and increasing reporting consistency. Translation of quantitative image analysis techniques to clinical use is currently uncommon and challenging. This thesis explores translation of quantitative imaging support tools for clinical neuroradiology use. I have proposed a translational framework for development of quantitative imaging tools, using dementia as an exemplar application. This framework emphasises the importance of clinical validation, which is not currently prioritised. Aspects of the framework were then applied to four disease areas: hippocampal sclerosis (HS) as a cause of epilepsy; dementia; multiple sclerosis (MS) and gliomas. A clinical validation study for an HS quantitative report showed that when image interpreters used the report, they were more accurate and confident in their assessments, particularly for challenging bilateral cases. A similar clinical validation study for a dementia reporting tool found improved sensitivity for all image interpreters and increased assessment accuracy for consultant radiologists. These studies indicated benefits from quantitative reports that contextualise a patient’s results with appropriate normative reference data. For MS, I addressed a technical translational challenge by applying lesion and brain quantification tools to standard clinical image acquisitions which do not include a conventional T1-weighted sequence. Results were consistent with those from conventional sequence inputs and therefore I pursued this concept to establish a clinically applicable normative reference dataset for development of a quantitative reporting tool for clinical use. I focused on current radiology reporting of gliomas to establish which features are commonly missed and may be important for clinical management decisions. This informs both the potential utility of a quantitative report for gliomas and its design and content. I have identified numerous translational challenges for quantitative reporting and explored aspects of how to address these for several applications across clinical neuroradiology