Surgeons versus radiologists: do we care what they think?

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Surgical Care
• Radiology Reporting

Background:

• Acute surgical care relies heavily on urgent imaging services.
• There is limited data on the utilization of radiological images and reports by surgical teams.
• This study addresses the gap in understanding the frequency and timeliness of image and report access in acute surgical admissions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the rates at which surgical teams view radiology images and reports for acute surgical admissions.
• To assess the timeliness of image and report availability for surgical teams.
• To investigate viewing patterns based on imaging modality and time of day (in-hours vs. after-hours).

Main Methods:

• A retrospective analysis of radiological studies performed during a one-month period at an Australian tertiary university teaching hospital.
• Classification of investigations by modality and availability ('in-hours' or 'after-hours').
• Calculation of time from imaging to report availability using electronic hospital system timestamps; Spearman's rho test used for correlation analysis.

Main Results:

• Out of 40,042 investigations, 1156 met study criteria; 82% had both images and reports viewed.
• CT scans showed the shortest median viewing times for both images (14 min) and reports (25 min).
• CT and MRI scans had the highest proportion (95%) of both images and reports viewed; X-ray reports were viewed least often (73%).

Conclusions:

• Surgical teams demonstrate high utilization of acute surgical radiological imaging and associated reports.
• The likelihood of a radiology report being viewed decreases with the simplicity of the imaging study.
• Findings highlight the importance of timely access to imaging reports for surgical decision-making.