The Radiology Digital Dashboard: Effects on Report Turnaround Time

Abstract

As radiology departments transition to near-complete digital information management, work flows and their supporting informatics infrastructure are becoming increasingly complex. Digital dashboards can integrate separate computerized information systems and summarize key work flow metrics in real time to facilitate informed decision making. A PACS-integrated digital dashboard function designed to alert radiologists to their unsigned report queue status, coupled with an actionable link to the report signing application, resulted in a 24% reduction in the time between transcription and report finalization. The dashboard was well received by radiologists who reported high usage for signing reports. Further research is needed to identify and evaluate other potentially useful work flow metrics for inclusion in a radiology clinical dashboard.

Dashboards for improving patient care: Review of the literature

“…Two studies used an interrupted time series design to monitor the effect of introducing the dashboard on outcomes over time [32,33]. Other study designs included before-after studies [34][35][36], non-comparative evaluations [37,38], questionnaire surveys of users of dashboards [2,39] and a usability study [40]. With two exceptions [28,37], the dashboards were evaluated in one organization, where they had been developed and implemented.…”

“…Overall one study was rated as being of high quality [33], four as being fair-good quality [28,32,35,40] and five as low quality [2,34,[37][38][39]. The kappa coefficient between the two raters was 0.92 (95% CI 0.82-1.00) indicating very good agreement.…”

“…anesthetists [32], radiologists [35] and pharmacists [38]. The predominant focus of the dashboards was providing information for clinicians to enable them to make decisions about the clinical management of patients.…”

“…provision of information to reduce inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics [28,39] or ensure appropriate prescribing of antibiotics [32]; monitoring of adherence to best practices for managing chronic conditions [37,40] or adherence to the ventilator bundle in ICU [33,36]; improvements in the timeliness of radiology reporting [35]; improving monitoring of potential medication adverse events [38] and for improving information about provision of mental health services [2].…”

“…The majority of other studies reported generally favorable impacts of the implementation of dashboards; their introduction has been associated with a significant increase in the prescription of on-time antibiotics by anesthetists [32], increased compliance with the ventilator bundle and a possible associated decrease in ventilator associated pneumonia in ICU settings [33,36], increased recording of smoking status and health screening for diabetes, cardiovascular risk, cervical and breast cancer [37], and improvements in the time taken for radiology reporting [35]. Two studies highlighted that using a dashboard appears to improve clinicians' ability to find information effectively [2,40] and one study showed that using a dashboard may assist pharmacists to monitor adverse events associated with certain drugs [38].…”