Video radiology reports valuable for improving patient-centered care

According to ARRS’ American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), video radiology reports have the potential to improve radiologists’ communication with patients, highlighting the importance of imaging in patient-centered care.

“Patient-centered video radiology reports are a useful tool to help improve patient understanding of imaging results,” explained lead researcher Michael P. Recht, the Louis Marx professor and chair of radiology at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. “The mechanism of creating the video reports and delivering them to patients can be integrated into existing informatics infrastructure.”

Recht and colleagues collaborated with Visage Imaging GmbH to build an integrated video reporting tool inside the diagnostic viewer, allowing for both image and voice capture. To aid patient understanding of cross-sectional images, cinematic rendered images were automatically created. For their incorporation into video reporting, these images were immediately available at the workstation. Video radiology reports were then uploaded to the institutional health portal, alongside clinical notes and examination images. Finally, a 10-question survey was administered to patients, assessing their perception of the video reports and requesting feedback.

From September 20, 2021 to January 22, 2022, 105 out of 227 faculty radiologists created a total of 3,763 video radiology reports, with patients viewing 864 unique videos. Based on 101 survey respondents, patients rated their overall experience with video radiology reporting a 4.7 out of 5. Specifically, video radiology reports using lay language and annotated images helped improve patients’ understanding of their results.

Pointing out that the mean time to create a video radiology report was under 4 minutes, “continued development is necessary to further shorten the creation time, so that use of video reports can expand from limited use in selected cases to more widespread use in daily clinical practice,” Recht et al. added.

North America’s first radiological society, the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) remains dedicated to the advancement of medicine through the profession of medical imaging and its allied sciences. An international forum for progress in radiology since the discovery of the x-ray, ARRS maintains its mission of improving health through a community committed to advancing knowledge and skills with the world’s longest continuously published radiology journal—American Journal of Roentgenology—the ARRS Annual Meeting, InPractice magazine, topical symposia, myriad multimedia educational materials, as well as awarding scholarships via The Roentgen Fund®.

DOI – 10.2214/AJR.22.27512