RSNA Radiology Reporting Initiative

RSNA Radiology Reporting Initiative

The RSNA has established a Radiology Reporting Committee to identify and promote "best practices" in radiology reporting. The Committee, part of the Radiology Informatics Committee, includes radiologists and imaging informatics experts.

Background Reading

• RSNA Reporting Committee Plan 2008

• Towards best practices in radiology reporting. Radiology 2009 [in press].

• 2008 Health policy statement on structured reporting in cardiovascular imaging

• The radiology report of the future: a summary of the 2007 Intersociety Conference

• Structured reporting: Patient care enhancement or productivity nightmare

Progress

• June 2008: RSNA convened a workshop to plan the future of radiology reporting. More than 50 radiologists, medical informatics specialists, and representatives of cardiology, oncology, and pathology participated.

• November 2008: In conjunction with the RSNA Quality Improvement Committee, developed a standardized template for documenting communication of critical test results.

• March 2009: Recruited 12 subcommittee chairs to create templates for specific clinical areas in conjunction with subspecialty professional organizations.

• May 2009: Held an industry forum for radiology reporting vendors, attended by 20 vendor representatives.

• December 2009: Planned availability of a small RSNA library of structured reporting templates, freely available for downloading and use.

Reporting Template Guidelines

We have developed report template guidelines for use by template authors. The templates will be converted to a format that is compatible with the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture standard. Concepts in each template will be mapped to RSNA RadLex and other controlled vocabularies.

References

We are constructing a bibliography of structured reporting in radiology.