Radiology reporting may be missing a crucial perspective—patient feedback
Soliciting patient and provider feedback for radiology reports can help spot errors and drive quality improvement efforts that may ultimately lead to better care.
That’s what a team of imaging experts said upon analyzing more than 350 patient and referrer comments covering everything from report timeliness and access to accuracy and errors.
More than 75% of patients said they were satisfied with their report compared to 65% of referring providers, the authors wrote Tuesday in JACR. Consumers also offered more written feedback, most often to say they were happy with the timeliness and access of documents.
Errors also accounted for up to 8% of patient and 9% of provider feedback, the authors noted. And utilizing this information may become critical as medicine continues to advance.
“With the digitization of medical records and 21st Century Cures Act regulatory mandates to facilitate patient’s access to health data, patients will have immediate and direct access to radiology reports,” Niusha Bavadian, with the University of California’s Riverside School of Medicine, and co-authors added. “The feedback from patients (and providers) could provide opportunities for radiology to improve unmet needs.”
For their study, Bavadian et al. embedded a two-question survey into the electronic health records at two institutions from January 2018 to May 2020. One location utilized an open text box for comments while the other used a five-star review method.
Out of 367 responses, patients accounted for 219 (60%) critiques while referring physicians gave the remaining 148. Embedding a link in the report garnered more responses than one requiring a copy and paste into a browser.
Twenty-seven errors were spotted in total. Several noticed inaccuracies in their clinical histories. For example, one patient was confused after reading their appendix was “normal” considering they had previously undergone an appendectomy.
The added accountability of report feedback may enhance radiologists’ attention to such details, the authors noted.
“Since patients’ perspectives are becoming increasingly valued as end users of radiology reports, understanding drivers of positive and negative ratings offer insight into the improvement of radiology reports.”
Read the entire study here.
Matt joined Chicago’s TriMed team in 2018 covering all areas of health imaging after two years reporting on the hospital field. He holds a bachelor’s in English from UIC, and enjoys a good cup of coffee and an interesting documentary.