RSNA and the Regenstrief Institute have announced a collaboration to standardize radiology procedure names.
Under a contract awarded by the U.S. National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, RSNA and the Indianapolis-based Regenstrief Institute will produce a single unified source of names and codes for radiology procedures.
RSNA owns and maintains the RadLex medical terminology for radiology, and the Regenstrief Institute owns and maintains the Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC), which provides terminology standards for medical tests and measurements.
Radiology practices typically create and maintain their own list of procedure names and descriptions to use in ordering, performing, reporting, and billing for services, and a lack of shared names makes it difficult to compare radiology data between sites.
For example, one group may call a procedure a thorax CT angiogram, while another may call the same procedure a chest CTA scan. Adopting standard procedure names will promote a common understanding of procedures across care sites, simplify clinical and business processes, improve communications among providers, and enhance the quality and consistency of clinical data produced by radiology, the two groups said.
The 18-month contract runs through March 2015; the organizations said they will have unified names for CT procedures by that time.
