A single radiologist assistant offloaded nearly 680 hours of noninterpretive work from radiologists at a large Australian private practice over 12 months, according to a recent study.
The finding is from researchers at Jones Radiology -- a multisite practice with more than 60 radiologists across 30 locations in South Australia -- who retrospectively analyzed all tasks delegated to a centralized radiology administrative assistant (RAA) working standard weekday hours between October 2021 and October 2022.
“Whilst indispensable, these non-reporting duties can be time-consuming and disruptive, with deleterious effect on a radiologist’s accuracy, efficiency, and productivity,” the group wrote. The study was published April 1 in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology.
In addition to the primary role of image interpretation and reporting, noninterpretive tasks constitute up to 44% of a radiologist’s workday, the authors explained. Examples of include study protocoling, obtaining access to prior imaging, and communication tasks with referrers, radiographers, and informatics personnel. To reduce the burden of these tasks, in 2021, the group implemented an RAA role, and in this study they assessed its impact on workflow and efficiency.
The RAA handled tasks assigned through a PACS-integrated critical results function and an internal messaging system. Over the study period, the RAA completed 5,445 assigned tasks, split nearly evenly between result-communication work (2,707 tasks, 49.7%) and non-result–communication tasks (2,738 tasks, 50.3%). The authors estimated that result-communication duties consumed approximately 451 hours and noninterpretive administrative tasks added an estimated 228 hours, for a combined total of approximately 679 hours.
“Utilizing RAA facilitates effective closed-loop communication with adequate turnaround time and reduces the burden of administrative tasks, allowing more time for clinical interpretative tasks,” the researchers wrote.
Further efforts should focus on systemic and institutional improvements, such as automation of prior imaging from external sites, to streamline RAA workflow, whose workload is expected to increase from here on, the group concluded.
The full study is available here.
