Modifying clinicians use of PACS imaging.

Area of Science:

• Radiology Informatics
• Clinical Workflow Optimization
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Delays in accessing radiological images from Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) can impact timely clinical decision-making.
• Junior doctors often face significant time lags between image availability and physician review.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility of minimizing the time delay between radiological image availability on PACS and physician viewing.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of a paging system in reducing this diagnostic imaging access delay.

Main Methods:

• A study was conducted with junior doctors at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth, Western Australia.
• Initial phase: measured existing time delays between PACS image availability and physician viewing.
• Intervention phase: implemented a paging system to notify doctors of image availability, followed by comparative time delay measurement.

Main Results:

• The mean time delay decreased from 180.02 minutes to 33.94 minutes after implementing pager notifications (P < 0.0001).
• This demonstrates a significant reduction in the time lag for accessing radiological studies.
• The intervention successfully modified clinicians' usage patterns of the PACS.

Conclusions:

• A paging system intervention can effectively reduce delays in radiological image review by physicians.
• Further research is needed to assess the sustainability of such interventions and their impact on patient outcomes.
• Future directions may involve integrating mobile technologies like tablets and smartphones for automated notifications.