Usage of structured reporting in radiological practice: results from an Italian online survey

Abstract

• Despite radiologists' awareness, radiological SR is little used in working practice. • Perceived SR advantages are reproducibility, better clinico-radiological interaction and link to metadata. • Perceived SR disadvantages are excessive simplification, template rigidity and poor user compliance. • Improved standardisation and engineering may be helpful to boost SR diffusion.

Structured Reporting in Clinical Routine

“…Despite all of these promising developments and the fact that some guidelines and certification procedures already require structured reporting, it has not yet become established in the clinical routine. A survey of Italian radiologists found that the majority of those surveyed had heard of structured reporting but only a minority of them regularly use it in their clinical work [30]. Reasons for this include the current lack of usable report templates and the minimal availability of software solutions for structured reporting.…”

Structured radiology reporting on an institutional level—benefit or new administrative burden?

“…Various surveys have shown that clinicians—and radiologists alike—prefer more structured reports over conventional narrative reports . Due to their unstructured nature and the fact that every reporting radiologist is free to use his or her individual vocabulary and style, conventional reports can add to the complexity of communication between radiologists and referring clinicians.…”

“…Various surveys have shown that clinicians-and radiologists alike-prefer more structured reports over conventional narrative reports. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Due to their unstructured nature and the fact that every reporting radiologist is free to use his or her individual vocabulary and style, conventional reports can add to the complexity of communication between radiologists and referring clinicians. Although an individual radiologist might be consistent in the terms he uses, the same is not true for radiologists among each other, which can lead to significant confusion on the referrer's side.…”

Systematic approach for migrating to a structured reporting context based on free-text reports and the DICOM Structured Reporting guidelines

“…Homorodean [Homorodean et al 2012] defined foundations for structured reporting in echocardiography by creating a consistent set of templates using the coded concepts of a previously developed ontology and the DICOM standard rules. Faggioni [Faggioni et al 2017] assessed the opinion on structured reporting and its usage by radiologist members of the Italian Society of Medical and Interventionist Radiology (SIRM). The assessment was performed using an online survey composed by ten questions about the physician's interest in structured reporting.…”