A new method of evaluating the quality of radiology reports

The radiology report must provide the ordering physician relevant information in an understandable format. The objectives of this study were to develop and apply a method for the grading of the quality of radiology reports and to evaluate differences based on the reader's experience. This grading method permits evaluation of compliance with the American College of Radiology communication standards.

A total of 240 intensive care unit admission chest radiograph reports were retrieved from our hospital database. These were graded for quality. Our grading system is based on the concept that a radiology report must provide information relevant to the patient's known clinical status and thus is important to the ordering clinician. The best grade for a report is IV and the minimum grade assigned is I. Results were further analyzed based on the experience of the reader.

A total of 436 grades from the 240 reports were generated: 374/436 (86%) grades were designated a III or IV, which we deemed as satisfactory reports. The scoring of the radiology reports evaluating the position of endotracheal tubes, catheters, and enteric feeding tubes scored significantly better than definitive diagnosis as the starting point on the clinical spectrum (P < .01). The scores from all other patients starting points on the clinical spectrum, when compared with one another, were nonsignificant. Using a one-way analysis of variance, when comparing reports based on the six different levels of reader experience, first-year residents up to staff radiologists reports showed no significant difference (P = .78).

Ideally, 100% of radiology reports should receive a grade III or IV. Our study showed that only 86% of the reports met this standard.