Dear RIS Insider,
Clear bidirectional communications are essential to timely and effective healthcare. When significant unexpected findings, such as a malignancy, occur during the course of a radiological study interpretation, radiologists promptly contact the referring physician and communicate these findings. Unfortunately, in rare instances, this communication is lost and the possibility for an error in patient safety occurs.
A joint team of radiologists from the University of Michigan and the Department of Veterans Affairs in Ann Arbor had just such an instance at their facility. In response, they developed a simple system to ensure that significant unexpected findings on imaging exams received appropriate attention from referring clinicians.
Their system put no additional burden on the radiologists' workload, required minimal personnel cost, and resulted in 100% effectiveness for ensuring appropriate clinical follow-up for patients presenting with unexpected significant findings. In addition, it reduced the number of medical errors at their institution.
To learn more about how these researchers successfully developed and instituted a semiautomated process for notification of critical diagnostic imaging findings, click here. As a RIS Insider subscriber, you have access to this story before it's published for the rest of our AuntMinnie.com members.
Also, be sure to check in with us this week and throughout the next month. We'll be at the 2006 Society for Computer Applications in Radiology (SCAR) meeting in Austin this week providing on-the-scene coverage of breaking news in imaging informatics. Next month we'll be at the 2006 Towards the Electronic Patient Record (TEPR) conference in Baltimore to explore how electronic medical record systems are being implemented and integrated throughout the healthcare enterprise.
Finally, if you have a comment or story to share about any aspects of RIS or healthcare IT, please get in touch with me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you.
