Productivity tools remain scarce in radiology

July 8, 2008 Productivity tools remain scarce in radiology Douglas Page -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adoption of productivity systems in radiology has been disappointingly slow, according to a recent study. "A surprising number of radiologists still work without some basic supports," said Dr. Nikhil R. Nayak of the department of diagnostic radiology at Yale University School of Medicine. Nayak investigated what types of radiology practices are early adopters and what types are lagging adopters of operational technologies, including PACS, wet-reading telephone lines, speech recognition, standard report language templates, physician assistants, and film-hanging staff (AJR 2008;190:1445-1452). "We conceptualized operational technologies as being distinct from direct-care technologies, such as laparoscopic surgery, and as being more likely to affect efficiency, with relatively little effect on patient outcomes," Nayak said. Nayak analyzed data collected in the American College of Radiology's 2003 survey of 1924 responding radiologists. Among his findings: In 2003, 47% of U.S. radiologists were in practices that had no PACS. Only 34% of U.S. radiology practices used PACS. 21% of U.S. radiologists were in practices that had neither PACS nor film-hanging staff. Only 18% of radiologists were in practices that used speech recognition. Nayak believes the data are not altogether obsolete despite their age.

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