Dr. Wayne Dell, a radiology resident at the University of Virginia, will share the research, which involved a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant retrospective analysis of reports from all imaging modalities except for breast imaging exams. The department's other modalities have had interactive reporting capabilities since 2016.
The researchers reviewed one year of diagnostic reports to determine whether radiologists had continued to use interactive reporting -- inserting hyperlinks to annotated images showing key findings -- after initial implementation. They noted the modality, presence of hyperlinks, and specialty of the reporting radiologists.
For CT studies, hyperlinks were found in 75% of abdomen, 53% of cardiovascular, 60% of chest, 33% of general, 17% of musculoskeletal (MSK), 23% of neuro, and 56% of pediatric exams. For fluoroscopy, the researchers found hyperlinks in 22% of abdomen and 8% of pediatric exams, and even fewer reports with hyperlinks for other types of studies. In MRI, they found hyperlinks in 59% of abdomen, 20% of cardiovascular, 78% of chest, 29% of general, 15% of MSK, 21% of neuro, and 51% of pediatric exams.
On the other hand, 5% of non-PET nuclear medicine and 66% of PET/CT reports utilized hyperlinks. For ultrasound, subspecialty use of interactive reports ranged from 0% to 8% with pediatrics the highest, and for x-ray, subspecialties ranged from 1% to 4% with abdomen the highest.
"Over the long-term, radiologists from all diagnostic specialties commonly elected to insert active hyperlinks into reports," Dell wrote. "This technique was applied frequently to CT, MRI, and PET/CT reports but less so for other modalities."
For more details, you'll want to take in this Monday session.
