Using informatics-enabled quality improvement techniques to meet health record documentation requirements in radiology reports.

PURPOSE: Medicare requires documented teaching physician involvement (attestation) in trainee-generated radiology reports. Automated attestation statement insertion in reports expedites the process but does not comply with requirements for active attestation. We evaluated an informatics-enabled quality improvement (QI) intervention to improve health record documentation requirements for active attestation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Institutional review board approval was not needed for this QI project performed in a 776-bed tertiary/quaternary teaching hospital. The intervention consisted of (1) policy requiring staff radiologists to actively attest to trainee-generated reports by personally activating a "macro" in the reporting system and (2) a semiautomated process to detect reports missing attestation; radiologists received daily e-mail reminders until the attestation statement was inserted. A random sample of 600 of 123,561 trainee-generated radiology reports created 17 months after the intervention (May 2011) was manually reviewed to determine attestation policy adherence. The number of attestation statements added in response to reminders throughout the entire study period was also evaluated. Trend analysis of the number of report addenda containing solely the attestation statement (proxy for missing initial attestation) was performed. RESULTS: Of 600 reports, 594 (99%) contained the attestation statement. Monthly attestations in response to email notifications decreased from 585 to 227 by the sixth month, a 2.6-fold reduction (P < .01). No significant trend was observed the following year, indicating a sustained effect. CONCLUSION: Informatics-enabled QI techniques resulted in 99% adherence to our teaching physician attestation policy with sustained results. Similar approaches may help improve adherence to other mandated performance measures in radiology reports.

Augmenting the impact of technology adoption with financial incentive to improve radiology report signature times.

PURPOSE: Radiology report signature time (ST) can be a substantial component of total report turnaround time. Poor turnaround time resulting from lengthy ST can adversely affect patient care. The combination of technology adoption with financial incentive was evaluated to determine if ST improvement can be augmented and sustained. METHODS: This prospective study was performed at a 751-bed, urban, tertiary care adult teaching hospital. Test-site imaging volume approximated 48,000 examinations per month. The radiology department has 100 trainees and 124 attending radiologists serving multiple institutions. Over a study period of 4 years and 4 months, three interventions focused on radiologist signature performance were implemented: 1) a notification paging application that alerted radiologists when reports were ready for signature, 2) a picture archiving and communications systems (PACS)-integrated speech recognition report generation system, and 3) a departmental financial incentive to reward radiologists semiannually for ST performance. Signature time was compared before and after the interventions. Wilcoxon and linear regression statistical analyses were used to assess the significance of trends. RESULTS: Technology adoption (paging plus speech recognition) reduced median ST from >5 to <1 hour (P < .001) and 80th-percentile ST from >24 to 15 to 18 hours (P < .001). Subsequent addition of a financial incentive further improved 80th-percentile ST to 4 to 8 hours (P < .001). The gains in median and 80th-percentile ST were sustained over the final 31 months of the study period. CONCLUSIONS: Technology interventions coupled with financial incentive can result in synergistic and sustainable improvement in radiologist report-signing behavior. The addition of a financial incentive leads to better performance than that achievable through technology alone.