Implementing an electronic workflow management tool helped one major healthcare organization slash mammography turnaround times by more than 60%. The move proved particularly beneficial for underserved women, researchers reported Wednesday.
Due to funding issues, Brigham and Women’s Hospital manually transferred exams performed on its mobile screening van from a laptop to a central PACS system. But an incident involving an overlooked, unread scan prompted stakeholders to assess the process and make a change.
They settled on a paperless workflow that instantly routed exams to an enterprise-wide master screening worklist. As a result, turnaround times dropped from more than 100 hours down to 36, authors reported June 23 in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology.
And given most of the patients treated in this study were underserved minorities at higher risk of breast cancer mortality, faster results make all the difference.
“By consolidating screening exams performed by our mammography van and urban community health center into a master electronic worklist available to all breast radiologists, our most vulnerable screening patients were able to receive their screening mammogram results in less than half the time than compared to [the] previous non-electronic system,” Nita Amornsiripanitch, MD, and co-authors wrote.
Patients at Brigham’s community health center were predominately African American (25%), non-English speakers (54%), and on Medicaid (48%).
While the project successfully dropped turnaround times, the new workflow didn’t affect the time to follow-up imaging and tissue sampling, the authors noted.
They believe such delays are attributable to patients never receiving their mammography results. Incorrect addresses on file, patients not understanding results, lack of education and cultural barriers may all contribute to the problem.
“Future efforts should focus on continuing to improve time to imaging follow-up for those with abnormal screening mammogram,” the researchers concluded.
Read more from Amornsiripanitch and co-authors 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.