Implementing a Software Solution Across Multiple Ultrasound Vendors to Auto-fill Reports with Measurement Values

Reliable transmission of ultrasound measurements into radiology reports is fraught with potential sources of error. In a conventional workflow, measurements are either written by hand on worksheets and/or dictated from worksheets or the images themselves into the radiology report. Valuable physician time is spent dictating, checking, and editing these values and this process is error-prone. Our approach was to use a transfer-software application to auto-populate measurements, with a goal of achieving >90% utilization rate by both technologists and radiologists. Implementation involved creating measurement fields for each measurement on each ultrasound unit of our multisite academic department. These fields were then mapped in both the transfer-software and the dictation software, to set up a 1:1:1 correspondence for each field. As a result, each measurement acquired by the technologist would automatically populate the radiology report within the dictation software. We created and mapped 128 fields for 39 exam templates. After implementation, technologist utilization rate was 86%-96% and overall radiologist utilization rate was 92%-93%. Radiology resident utilization rate was highest, at 95%-96%. We provide a guide for implementation and lessons learned.