Causes of Delay in Radiological Reporting and ways to Reduce them

Abstract

Background: Radiology reporting in today's era has a very important role in diagnosis and management of patient so it is very important to rule out the causes and ways to improve reporting time and its quality. Delays in performing radiology scans or interpreting them can prolong the time until a proper treatment decision can be made, leading to increased costs and potential compromises in patient care.
Objective: To find out reasons for delay in radiological reporting and to find out how to reduce them and improve reporting standards.
Materials and Methods: This study was an observational descriptive study and it involved data collected from all patients whose CT scan or MRI was performed for random problems in HMC.  There scans were followed till they were reported and handed over to patients or patient's attendants. Questionnaires were given to five consultants of radiology department to know about causes of delay.
Results: In this observational study we found that delay in reporting was multifactorial. Approximately 11,600 CT scans and MRI scans were performed in the period between 1st July to 31st December 2018. Approximately 2070 (17.8%) reports were delayed more than 72 hours while 82.1% scan were reported in time within 72 hours. In our study the most important cause of delayed reporting was incomplete history (34.8%), while other causes were inappropriate technique (21.5%), radiologist overburden (29.7%) while in 14% patients the cause of delayed reporting was lack of communication between radiologist and clinician.
Key Words: Computed tomography, Magnetic resonance imaging, Reporting.