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Radiologists Help Each Other to Improve Efficiency by Decreasing the Time to Look Up a Patient’s Relevant Clinical History in the Electronic Medical Record

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Abstract

The study aims to prove that it takes less time to look up relevant clinical history from an electronic medical record (EMR) if the information is already provided in a specific space in the EMR by a fellow radiologist. Patients with complex oncological and surgical histories need frequent imaging, and every time a radiologist may spend a significant amount of time looking up the same clinical information as their peers. In collaboration with ACMIO and Radiant Epic team, a space labeled “Specialty Comments” was added to the SNAPSHOT of patient's chart in EMR. For our research purpose, the specialty comment was labeled as boxed history as a variable for data analysis. If the history was not provided in that particular space, it was labeled as without boxed history. Inclusion criteria included outpatients with complex oncological histories undergoing CT chest, abdomen, and pelvis with IV contrast. The time to look up history (LUT) was documented in minutes and seconds. Two assistant professors from Abdominal Imaging provided LUT. A total of 85 cases were included in the study, 39 with boxed history and 46 without boxed history. Comparing averages of the individual reader means for history, mean LUT differed by 2.03 min (without boxed history) versus 0.57 min (with boxed history), p < 0.0001. The t-test and the nonparametric Wilcoxon tests for a difference in the population means were highly significant (p < 0.0001). A history directed to radiologist's needs resulted in a statistically significant decrease in time spent by interpreting radiologists to look through the electronic medical records for patients with complex oncological histories. Availability of history pertinent to radiology has wide-ranging advantages, including quality reporting, decrease in turnaround time, reduction in interpretation errors, and radiologists’ continued learning. The space for documenting clinical history may be reproduced, or some similar area may be developed by optimizing the electronic medical records.

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Data Availability

The author(s) declare(s) that they had full access to all of the data in this study and the author(s) take(s) complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University School of Medicine, 2554 Congress Street, Carmel, IN, 46032, USA

    Umber Shafique

  2. Departments of Radiology and Biostatistics, Hospitals and Clinics, University of Iowa, 200 Hawkins Drive, Iowa City, IA, 52242-1077, USA

    Stephen L. Hillis

  3. Department of Radiology, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, 200 Hawkins Drive, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA

    Jinha M. Park, David M. Kuehn & Maheen Rajput

Authors
  1. Umber Shafique
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  2. Stephen L. Hillis
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  3. Jinha M. Park
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  4. David M. Kuehn
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  5. Maheen Rajput
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Umber Shafique.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no financial disclosure. An abbreviated version of this study in PowerPoint format was presented as Quality Improvement report QI103-ED-X at RSNA 2020- 106th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, November 29 to December 5, 2020.

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Shafique, U., Hillis, S.L., Park, J.M. et al. Radiologists Help Each Other to Improve Efficiency by Decreasing the Time to Look Up a Patient’s Relevant Clinical History in the Electronic Medical Record. J Digit Imaging 36, 388–394 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-022-00726-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-022-00726-4

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