Standardized Reporting in IR: A Prospective Multi-Institutional Pilot Study

To assess adoption and survey-based satisfaction rates following deployment of standardized interventional radiology (IR) procedure reports across multiple institutions.

Standardized reporting templates for 5 common interventional procedures (central venous access, inferior vena cava [IVC] filter insertion, IVC filter removal, uterine artery embolization, and vertebral augmentation) were distributed to 20 IR practices in a prospective quality-improvement study. Participating sites edited the reports according to institutional preferences and deployed them for a 1-year pilot study concluding in July 2015. Study compliance was measured by sampling 20 reports of each procedure type at each institution, and surveys of interventionalists and referring physicians were performed. Modifications to the standardized reporting templates at each site were analyzed.

Ten institutions deployed the standardized reports, with 8 achieving deployment of 3-12 months. The mean report usage rate was 57%. Each site modified the original reports, with 26% mean reduction in length, 18% mean reduction in wordiness, and 60% mean reduction in the number of forced fill-in fields requiring user input. Linear-regression analysis revealed that reduced number of forced fill-in fields correlated significantly with increased usage rate (R² = 0.444; P = .05). Surveys revealed high satisfaction rates among referring physicians but lower satisfaction rates among interventional radiologists.

Standardized report adoption rates increased when reports were simplified by reducing the number of forced fill-in fields. Referring physicians preferred the standardized reports, whereas interventional radiologists preferred standard narrative reports.