the communication crisis

The majority of radiology environments are outfitted with some of today's best technology; multi-million dollar scanners, voice-recognition transcription, sophisticated PACS and feature-rich information systems. Despite all the money spent on optimizing radiology workflow, improving diagnosis accuracy and boosting productivity, the end-product of radiology, the professional interpretation of exams, often fails to be seen by radiology's primary client, the ordering physician.

Malpractice premiums in the United States are spiraling out of control and it is in no small part due to miscommunication of significant findings. Miscommunication has been on the rise for the last 30 years, being a contributing factor in about 2% of all radiology malpractice cases in 1975 growing to the fourth most frequent primary allegation against radiologists today. [PIAA - 1997]

Communication complications are only expected to worsen as the practice of radiology becomes more decentralized and remote with the advent and growth of more sophisticated technologies such as PACS. Quicker, high-output, multi-slice scanners are increasing the volume of images and studies that radiologists need to read while a diminishing number of doctors are specializing in radiology. These factors point to an increasing work-demand on a diminishing labor-pool resulting in busier interpreting radiologists.

With an already demanding workload, radiologists rarely make time to pick up a telephone to communicate non-critical results. Instead, they continue to rely on antiquated methods of result delivery which have been proven to be insufficient. Without considering reporting deficiencies, such as patient-registration errors and unreachable referring physicians, these radiologist are putting themselves at unnecessary risk.

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