Factors Affecting Radiologist’s PACS Usage

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if any of the factors radiologist, examination category, time of week, and week effect PACS usage, with PACS usage defined as the sequential order of computer commands issued by a radiologist in a PACS during interpretation and dictation. We initially hypothesized that only radiologist and examination category would have significant effects on PACS usage. Command logs covering 8 weeks of PACS usage were analyzed. For each command trace (describing performed activities of an attending radiologist interpreting a single examination), the PACS usage variables number of commands, number of command classes, bigram repetitiveness, and time to read were extracted. Generalized linear models were used to determine the significance of the factors on the PACS usage variables. The statistical results confirmed the initial hypothesis that radiologist and examination category affect PACS usage and that the factors week and time of week to a large extent have no significant effect. As such, this work provides direction for continued efforts to analyze system data to better understand PACS utilization, which in turn can provide input to enable optimal utilization and configuration of corresponding systems. These continued efforts were, in this work, exemplified by a more detailed analysis using PACS usage profiles, which revealed insights directly applicable to improve PACS utilization through modified system configuration.

Radiologists’ Variation of Time to Read Across Different Procedure Types

“…Hence, knowledge of productivity, factors affecting it and methods to optimize overall efficiency are of rising importance. That time to read a case indeed depends on both radiologist and procedure type was shown in [15] but to what extent these and how additional factors such as age, years of experience and subspecialty affect productivity is at large unknown.…”

Constructing an experiential education model in undergraduate radiology education by the utilization of the picture archiving and communication system (PACS)

“…Since the introduction of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the late 1980s, the increase in image data volume associated with these imaging modalities led to greater demands for compatible data storage platforms. Thus, the picture archiving and communication system (PACS), which can store, retrieve, distribute, analyse and digitally process medical images, has become an indispensable tool in today’s clinical work [3–5]. However, limited by the hardware and software conditions, the use of PACS in radiology training has remained somewhat limited [6, 7].…”

Constructing an Experiential Education Model in Undergraduate Radiology Education by the Utilization of the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS)

“…Since the introduction of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the late 1980s, the increase in image data volume associated with these modalities led to greater demands for compatible data storage platforms. Thus, the picture archiving and communication system (PACS), which can store, retrieve, distribute, analyse and digitally process medical images, has become an indispensable tool in today's clinical work [2]. However, limited by the hardware and software conditions, the use of PACS in radiology training has remained somewhat limited [3,4].…”