Applied Radiology

By Barbara Dumery

In a recent post published by Dr. Rasu Shrestha, he discusses the benefits of a speech-enabled radiology reporting workflow and asks his readers to share their thoughts on what they think are the breakout innovations and opportunities in this area. So I’m here today to do just that.

In my opinion, a breakout opportunity in the radiology reporting space is the ability for radiologists to embellish the diagnostic report before the bottle goes down river to the referring physician. Right now you’re probably wondering, “why on Earth is she talking about bottles and rivers,” so let me explain myself.  Think of the patient’s imaging results as being a message in a bottle and it is floating down a river – river being the mechanism by which the results are communicated from the radiologist to the referring physician. The message typically has interpretations of the diagnosis and recommendations for follow-up; however, with a data-driven speech-reporting platform, radiologists can add more information to the bottle before it goes down the river. Now, radiologists have the opportunity to capture the patient’s actual experience in imaging, not just their results. For example, with data integration radiologists can easily include the following in their reports:

1. The contrast agent dose that was actually delivered to the patient. This information is important for the referring physician because it impacts the patient’s fluid intake and can cause adverse effects, such as kidney dysfunction.
2. The radiation dose exposure, which is important in determining appropriate follow up exams.
3. More detailed ultrasound measurements, which can provide a much richer picture of the patient’s situation.

By having the opportunity to include more information in the bottle, the next clinician in the patient’s care cycle can have a fuller picture of what happened up stream – leading to a more accurate diagnosis and overall improved patient care.

EMBELLISH

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.