By Barbara Dumery
When you pull up a new exam, it can be infinitely more
productive to start your dictation with a template versus starting from
scratch. Now, don’t get me wrong, starting from scratch is great if you’re
baking a chocolate cake, but not when it comes to streamlining the creation of
a patient report. The reality is that predefined
templates help cut the time associated with dictating a patient report and also
improve the overall quality of documentation.
Here are three reasons why you should jump start your
radiology dictation today and begin to leverage templates at part of your
reporting workflow:
1. Makes you faster
By using predefined templates and associating those
templates to the order, you can immediately start your dictation with the right
framework in mind. A template includes sections of text and fields that you typically
need to include in your report. By including these texts in the template it
enables you to save time by not needing to dictate the same phrases for every
one of your dictations. In fact today, through the use of templates, Mankato
Clinic is able to complete over 97 percent of their reports in one hour or less.
2. Makes you richer
Radiologists sometimes create incomplete documentation
resulting in loss of reimbursement. A recent study
showed that incomplete documentation for abdominal ultrasound reports resulted
in approximately five percent in loss of professional income. Templates can
help remind you of the different components that you need to touch upon in
their report. Furthermore, when using dynamic templates an order can trigger
the appropriate template to be selected, ensuring that the unique information
needed in that type of report is included.
3. Makes you smarter
Ultimately, diagnostic imaging is about providing the most
thorough and accurate diagnosis for a patient. When you use a template for your
dictation it can help guide you through different body parts or components you
need to reference. For example, the
University of Utah Health Care (UUHC) has further enhanced the reporting process by utilizing structured reporting to create
body part- and modality-specific report templates. Radiologists are typically interrupted multiple times an
hour; by referring physicians, technologists, and patients. Templates can help reorient
the radiologist when they’re able to turn their attention back to the study. By
using a template, the radiologist is able to easily see what they’ve already
dictated and what areas they still need to touch upon. In addition, advanced
template capabilities enable radiologists to automatically pull in information
such as radiation dose information, ultrasound measurements, and/or contrast
agent dose information ensuring a more complete and accurate report.
To recap: Chocolate cake? Great when you make it from
scratch. Dictating radiology reports from scratch? Not so much. How have
reporting templates impacted your group or practice?
Professional Biography:
Barbara Dumery is the
Director of Diagnostics Solutions Marketing at Nuance Communications. She joined Nuance in
2006 and has over 15 years of experience in healthcare IT. Nuance Healthcare is
the market leader in providing clinical understanding solutions that accurately
capture and transform the patient story into meaningful, actionable information.
Prior to joining Nuance, Barbara was the Senior Product Manager at eMed
Technologies. She graduated from Tufts University in ’95 with a BSEE in
Electrical Engineering and in ’97 with an MSEE in Electrical Engineering,
Biomedical Engineering.