Radiologists estimate time savings with advanced radiology reports

A forthcoming survey suggests that both radiologists and clinicians perceive time savings from the use of interactive multimedia reporting (IMR).

For the 2026 Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) annual meeting this month in Philadelphia, University of Virginia (UVA) Health IMR lead radiologist Cree Gaskin, MD, and team will present the full results of the survey, the details of which will be of interest to radiologists and other physicians.

AuntMinnie spoke with Gaskin for a preview of the results from his academic medical center, one of only a few landmark IMR technology projects in the U.S. We've also included other luminaries and practical tips to take forward.

What's the outlook toward interactive multimedia reporting? Do radiologists report time savings either during report creation or downstream report review, or both? Is IMR associated with perceptions of reduced errors, greater clarity, and greater value in reports? These are a few of the questions posed in a new survey completed by 52 UVA faculty, resident, and fellow radiologists.

Clarity in radiology reports

The survey focused on interactive multimedia reporting (IMR) utilization in radiology. A vast majority (96%, with 90% strongly) of radiologists prefer reviewing previous reports using the hyperlinks in a multimedia report, the survey found. 

Radiologists also cite greater report clarity and time savings both during report creation and downstream upon report review, the results noted, pointing to the following:

Professor of radiology and orthopedic surgery, interim chair of radiology, and chief medical imaging information officer Cree Gaskin, MD
University of Virginia, UVA Health

• 69% of respondents reported “almost always” utilizing automatic insertion of comparison exams into reports, saving a perceived average of 12.4 seconds per report.
• 86% of radiologists reported inserting hyperlinks to important findings in the majority of MRI, CT, and PET reports, with a perceived average of 8.9 seconds saved for each hyperlink placed due to automated data insertion (such as measurements and image/series numbers).

Importantly, referring physicians recognize advantages in their ability to manage the radiologic findings along their patients' care continuum, according to Gaskin. Hyperlinks and embedded key images in radiology reports can make a significant difference in patient care, diagnosis, or treatment, Gaskin has found.

Gaskin shared that in a recent referring provider survey, one provider commented: "These are faster, allow me to quickly show patients, and prevent me from reading the wrong thing as abnormal or normal myself. Hyperlinks prevent errors every day. I'm not proficient at reading imaging, so having a hyperlink is great at showing me where the area of concern is located."

IMR at-scale

At UVA, IMR serves the health system at-scale. In the beginning, the initiative focused on adding key images, Gaskin explained, until they discovered the impact of hyperlinks to key image findings and the benefit of creating them automatically.

IMR brings a new type of automation to medical reports, whereby image-related data, such as key CT, MR, or PET images, measurements, image/series numbers, and comparison exams within the PACS are connected downstream to populate rich-formatted interactive reports that contain hyperlinks connected back to annotated images within the PACS, he continued.

Take-home points: On early adoption, Gaskin said he has observed that residents, overall, have been more likely to create interactive multimedia reports than attending radiologists; however, attending radiologists still commonly create the advanced reports.

Brief training for radiologists has translated into an immediate rise in interactive multimedia reporting, followed by sustained use and continued growth. Radiologists are willing to change their reporting habits, Gaskin said.

Reporting out of the PACS

UVA achieved success with an IMR system that combines the reporting product into the viewing product, the PACS.

"The PACS is where we report from so that you can take image-related information and share it with the report and have the report connect back to the images," Gaskin said. "If you try to share image related information from a viewer to a reporting application with a third-party system or an intermediary layer, it may be technically possible. It's just more complicated. It's not as strategically advantaged."

There are two reasons why IMR saves time for radiologists, Gaskin explained.

"First, when creating hyperlinks, we automatically insert measurements and image location information into the report," he said. "This saves time and effort during report creation, while also reducing error. Instead of having to dictate them, they automatically show up. Second, because the key findings in the report are connected to the images, we can save time by clicking links to navigate through key findings."

Take-home point: For radiologists interested in pursuing interactive multimedia reporting, Gaskin said to start by asking for the technology.

"Vendors need to provide technology which supports radiologist’s use of IMR in an efficient and preferably time-saving manor," he said, emphasizing it must be easy to adopt.

Disease tracking tool

David Vining, MD, PhD, diagnostic radiologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

At the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, IMR reports create a longitudinal patient record toward improved cancer management and surveillance. The home-grown system there is designed to combine electronic medical records into a multidimensional disease tracking software, according to David Vining, MD, PhD, a diagnostic radiologist who has been involved in multimedia reporting for almost 30 years.

Vining's team has developed a viable multimedia reporting system that today is used to support 80 clinical trials and automate disease response assessment, he told AuntMinnie.

Example of an aggregate of a home-grown interactive multimedia report, courtesy of David Vining, MD, PhD, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

"Our system works by recording images and voice descriptions of findings, tagging the images with metadata (anatomy, diagnosis, etc.) using natural language processing referenced to an ontology, and assembling a multimedia report with related information linked in timelines," Vining explained.

Patients get a clinical report and a research report with the system, Vining said.

Importantly, the system has evolved from a multimedia report into a longitudinal patient record that is interfaced to the PACS. The IMR system consumes AI-generated tumor measurements and adds contextual information regarding each recorded tumor, he continued.

Underpinning the framework is a multidisciplinary ontological system, Vining noted.

Take-home points: Make local data engineering a first priority to prevent content bottlenecks. In MD Anderson's case, the ontology structure is proprietary, but the example demonstrates the importance of standard core data elements required as part of devising an advanced radiology reporting system.

Vining also advises not reaching for historical data as part of an IMR initiative.

"Every hospital thinks they're sitting on a gold mine with that historical data," Vining said. "And yes, you can go try to extract some information, but it's probably not worth the effort and the accuracy is going to be suspect and there's a whole host of problems."

Basic IMR infrastructure

Consultant David Kwan, Insygnia

David Kwan, a retired clinical informaticist, former PACS consultant, and principal at Insygnia Consulting in Toronto, Canada, said IMR in radiology has been a tough nut to crack overall. IMR has been limited but that may be changing, he noted.

IMR requires successfully connecting five systems: the electronic medical record (EMR), the radiology information system (RIS), the PACS, a display, and the radiology reporting system, explained Kwan, a leading voice in IHE Connectathon events, including the IMR Connectathon.

"We've come a long way. We're going to see more IMR," Kwan told AuntMinnie, highlighting the U.S. Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA)'s role in also generating momentum.

TEFCA's interoperability footprint has enlarged to 500,000 million health records as of January 2026, up from roughly 10 million in January 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In addition, Microsoft's imminent plan to sunset the highly PowerScribe 360 platform opens the door to a possible "user shift" to consider other radiology reporting systems, Kwan said. Other systems will have more opportunities to showcase their interactive and multimedia capabilities, he added.

Take-home point: Applications further downstream or outside of the radiologist workflow need an effective method for translating multimedia material.

Bottom line

While it may be difficult to quantify radiology's adoption of interactive multimedia reporting overall and technical barriers still exist for some EHRs and radiology reporting applications, that doesn't mean departments aren't successfully deploying advanced radiology reports. This two-part series has highlighted advancements, successes, and barriers to adoption.

IMR offers potential to improve the quality and value of the radiologist's primary work product. The IMR experts interviewed for this two-part series agreed that adopting IMR means challenging the status quo in radiology reporting.

Regardless, for institutions seeking to adopt these types of radiology reports, the experts all recommended establishing a close working relationship with PACS, RIS, and EMR IT experts, as well as vendors.