Dr Vivek Chail, Expert Radiologist, icliniq.com describes the areas where MERR is increasing utilised
In the present day, multimedia services is found in most work places and it is being welcomed in medical sciences as an opportunity to upgrade the level of healthcare management and decision making. Radiology is one of the important areas in medicine which helps diagnose the medical condition in a patient and simplify management as well as helps take critical decisions on the treatment options available. Including pictures and graphics in text reports enhances the understandability of the condition of the patient at a minimal extra effort from the radiologist’s end.
In routine radiology practice, we have been providing ultrasound and doppler images with text reports for years and this has become common practice. However, while reporting radiological studies containing a large amount of pictures like CT scans and MRI scans, the reports usually contain text summary of findings and images are either printed on films or distributed as CDs or DVDs.
Since CT scans and MRI scans often contain tens to hundreds of images, it can get confusing and tiresome for the referring physician to take time and make sense of the images sent, with a minimal scope of misinterpretation of imaging findings, especially when there is more than one significant finding. Small clips and videos can also be attached to soft copies of reports to be visualised by the physician.
Keeping the above in mind, providing the referring physician a few select images in the text report can be of immense help. Such images can highlight the points described in a report and illustrate the findings in greater detail and aid in complete understanding.
There have been studies involving neurosurgeons, oncology physicians and pulmonologists and this concluded that over 80 per cent of the doctors preferred multimedia embedded radiology reports and felt that this format of reporting will encourage better patient care in follow up. Many radiologists mention measurements and few off them use subjective terms to describe lesions. Multimedia enhancement radiology reporting can help in providing a common platform with more universally acceptable reports.
Neurosurgeons usually handle life threatening conditions and it is important for them to have an accurate knowledge of the condition to help make the best treatment choice. In this situation, a few pictures added to the report will help them get a better idea of the problem and take the next step in treatment.
In oncology, there is a requirement to know the exact location, dimensions, extent and nature of the problem area. Attaching a few pictures in the report can provide excellent detail and help the physician in discussing the medical condition more appropriately with the patient. Often a biopsy may have to be done, in this situation also a report containing pictures comes in handy for the doctor to explain the procedure to the patient.
In cardiology imaging, dynamic MRI studies of the heart are being done in many institutions. We can add a short clip of the cardiac cycle in a soft copy of the report and this will give a better insight of the heart function to the referring physician and they can plan procedures based on the multimedia attachments.
Chest imaging contains many images through the lungs and it can become a tedious job for the pulmonologist to go through each picture and search for any nodules mentioned in the report. Multimedia attachments containing important images will make it much easier for the physician to read through the report and provide accurate management.
It is important to mention that typographical errors might creep into reports despite taking care. Providing multimedia reports can provide a measure to double confirm a problem area with respect to the location, size and number. Any suspicious mismatch can be reconfirmed and possible harm to the patient can be avoided.
Providing multimedia in the report can help better feedback and help to maintain a closer relationship between radiologists and physicians. This can decrease the average consultation time spent on each patient and decrease patient waiting time at the physician’s clinic and increase the number of patient appointments.
It is of note that emergency reports are often read by resident doctors and those who are still undergoing training. Providing multimedia enhanced reports will help to develop better training programmes and easy understanding in this group which will in turn provide an enhanced output in terms of decision making and patient care.
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