Mehta A, Dreyer K, Boland G, Frank M
Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston 02114, USA.
J Digit Imaging. 2000 May;13(2 Suppl 1):105-7. doi: 10.1007/BF03167637.
Radiology departments are beginning to embrace new technologies to decrease operating budgets and improve services. One of these technologies is the picture archiving and communication system (PACS). PACS, through immediate availability of images to the radiologist, promises to decrease turnaround times of reports to the clinician. The purpose of this study was to determine if this technology actually decreases the time for referring clinicians to receive reports generated by the radiologist. The time to provide a preliminary report by a resident and time to finalize this report by a board-certified radiologist was retrospectively obtained for 6,022 abdominal and pelvic computed tomography (CT) scans over two 1-year periods from March 1, 1997 to March 1, 1998 and from March 1, 1998 to March 1, 1999. During the first year, interpretation was conducted using hard-copy film and during the second using PACS. In both 1-year periods, MedSpeak voice recognition software (IBM, White Plains, NY) was employed for dictation. The average time for a preliminary report for a abdominal and pelvic CT, dictated by a resident or fellow, to be available in alphanumeric form on the hospital information system using hard-copy film was 3.73 days. The installation of a PACS system decreased this turnaround time to 0.56 days, representing an 85.0% improvement. The time to availability of final reports, ie, signed by board-certified staff radiologists, was 5.49 days in the hard-copy interpretation subset and 5.97 days in the PACS subset. The addition of PACS into an academic gastrointestinal radiology division improves availability of alphanumeric preliminary reports of abdominal and pelvic CTs on the hospital information system (HIS), dictated by a resident or fellow, by 85.0%. There was no impact with a PACS on the time to final sign reports by a staff board certified radiologist as signing patterns remained relatively constant over the two interpretation formats.
放射科开始采用新技术以削减运营预算并改善服务。其中一项技术就是图像存档与通信系统（PACS）。通过让放射科医生能够即时获取图像，PACS有望缩短向临床医生报告的周转时间。本研究的目的是确定这项技术是否真的能减少转诊临床医生接收放射科医生生成报告的时间。回顾性获取了1997年3月1日至1998年3月1日以及1998年3月1日至1999年3月1日这两个1年期内6022例腹部和盆腔计算机断层扫描（CT）的住院医师提供初步报告的时间以及经委员会认证的放射科医生完成最终报告的时间。第一年使用硬拷贝胶片进行解读，第二年使用PACS。在这两个1年期内，均采用MedSpeak语音识别软件（IBM，纽约州怀特普莱恩斯）进行听写。住院医师或住院医生口述的腹部和盆腔CT初步报告以字母数字形式在医院信息系统上通过硬拷贝胶片可用的平均时间为3.73天。安装PACS系统后，这一周转时间缩短至0.56天，提高了85.0%。最终报告（即经委员会认证的放射科工作人员签署）可用的时间在硬拷贝解读子集中为5.49天，在PACS子集中为5.97天。在学术性胃肠放射科引入PACS可使住院医师或住院医生口述的腹部和盆腔CT字母数字初步报告在医院信息系统（HIS）上的可用性提高85.0%。PACS对经委员会认证的放射科工作人员签署最终报告的时间没有影响，因为在两种解读形式下签署模式保持相对稳定。
