Ultrasound reporting time significantly reduced with DICOM SR

Ultrasound reporting time significantly reduced with DICOM SR

Implementing DICOM SR yields a significant improvement in dictation times over conventional ultrasound reporting, according to Dr Steven Horii from the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Dr Horii presented at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) meeting. He showed that using DICOM SR from ultrasound systems to automatically fill in measurement values in dictation templates significantly reduces dictation time, representing potential time savings of nearly seven days a year for the institution.

Reduced Dictation Times

	Conventional macros (median)	Autofill macros (median)		Conventional macros (mean)	Autofill macros (mean)
All-Reports	6.24 minutes (n=7386)	5.91 (-5.3%) (n=2356)		6.71 minutes (n=7386)	6.49 (-3.3%) (n=2356)
1st Trimester	7.49 minutes (n=276)	4.44 (-40.7%) (n=178)		7.64 minutes (n=276)	5.29 (-30.7%) (n=178)
2nd/3rd Trimester	8.58 minutes (n=352)	6.51 (-24.1%) (n=456)		8.45 minutes (n=352)	6.96 (-17.6%) (n=456)

Dr Horii made a few comments regarding the results. First, the ‘All Reports’ category include many exam types without values to fill, such as deep venous thrombosis studies. Second, from historical experience, dictation times over 15 minutes were considered affected by interruptions and excluded from this study. Dr Horii also believes that errors were also reduced, but this study was not constructed to be able to determine quality improvements.

Check out the a press release highlighting Dr Horii’s reporting automation presentation at AuntMinnie.com [Free authentication required SIIM: DICOM structured reports speed ultrasound reporting ]