Structured templates don't improve accuracy, speed for ultrasound reports

Thursday, December 1 | 11:40 a.m.-11:50 a.m. | SSQ07-08 | Room S402AB
The use of structured templates to produce reports of abdominal ultrasound exams at the Ottawa Hospital in Ontario was inefficient, according to an analysis that will be presented in this scientific session.

Dr. Sree Harsha Tirumani, who is now a fellow in abdominal imaging and nonvascular interventional radiology at McGill University Health Centre, will discuss details of a study that evaluated 100 abdominal ultrasound reports prepared with a structured report template by radiologists using speech recognition technology over several months in 2010.

Radiology fellows were then asked to interpret the images for each case and prepare a new report without using the structured template. Each set of reports was compared and assessed for accuracy, completeness, conciseness, and clarity. Additionally, a comparison was made of the number of positive findings that were reported or missed and the number of negative findings reported.

The reports prepared without the use of structured templates proved to be more accurate, and although the differences were not statistically significant, they were more complete, concise, and easier to understand.

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