Radiology double reads

Diagnostic errors in radiology reports can result in patient harm, lead to unnecessary additional testing or interventions, or otherwise diminish the quality of care delivery.1 2 In this issue, Lauritzen et al retrospectively evaluated the impact of a quality assurance process using double reads on changes made to abdominal CT reports requested by referring surgeons.3 The authors address an important topic in this insightful study highlighting the challenges and opportunities related to improving radiology report quality. The authors analysed 1071 consecutive abdominal CT reports on patients referred by surgeons from five public Norwegian hospitals double read by two consultant radiologists over a 17-month period. The request for the second read was initiated at the judgement of the primary radiologist reader who could have been an inexperienced radiologist, an experienced general radiologist, an abdominal radiology subspecialist or a subspecialist in another organ system. Preliminary...
Source: Quality and Safety in Health Care - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Editorials Source Type: research