automatic release of radiology reports via an online patient portal

When will my diagnostic results be auto-released?

Automatic Release of Radiology Reports via an Online Patient Portal. Okawa G(1), Ching K(1), Qian H(2), Feng Y(3). Author information: (1)Hawaii Permanente Medical Group, Honolulu, Hawaii. (2)Health Information Technology & Transformation …

How did the patient read the results of the scan?

Jun 24, 2017 · Access to Radiology Reports via an Online Patient Portal: Experiences of Referring Physicians and Patients. Henshaw D, Okawa G, Ching K, Garrido T, Qian H, Tsai J. J Am Coll Radiol, (6):582-6.e1 2015 MED: 26047399

How long does it take for lab results to be released?

Jun 01, 2015 · In a 2012 simulation study, 75% of patients preferred notification of radiology results by portal for normal, indeterminate, and abnormal findings [6]. However, few reports exist of organizational experience with providing radiology results to patients via an EHR-integrated online patient portal. In 2013, Kaiser Permanente Hawaii enabled referring physicians to …

Can MyChart result release adversely affect patient care?

Jun 01, 2015 · Referring-physician release of radiology reports via the online portal is important to patients, useful to referring physicians, and does not affect referring-physician workloads. A delay between reporting results to referring physicians and releasing them to patients allows time for needed physician-patient communication.

What is the 102-539?

US Congress. Mammography Quality Standards Act of 1992, pub l no 102-539, as amended by Mammography Quality Standards Reauthorization Act of 1998 and 2004, pub l no 105-248, 42 usc § 263 (b). Available at http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/MammographyQualityStandardsActandProgram/Regulations/ucm110823.htm.

Is manual release of radiology reports good?

Survey results indicated that the practice of manual release of radiology reports was well received by the majority of patients, and most referring physicians found it useful. In addition, releasing reports to patients had a negligible impact on referring-physician workloads. Few physicians stopped releasing radiology reports to patients via the online portal, out of concern that doing so would generate confusion and anxiety for patients.

Is Kaiser Permanente Hawaii a non profit?

Kaiser Permanente Hawaii is 1 of 7 regions of the nation’s largest not-for-profit integrated health care delivery system. Approximately 230,000 members receive all needed care from 500 physicians, representing all clinical specialties, and 4,500 employees at 1 Kaiser Permanente-owned medical center and 18 medical office buildings, on 3 islands. In 2004, Kaiser Permanente Hawaii implemented KP HealthConnect, an EHR integrated across all care settings that includes an online patient portal: kp.org. As of March 2014, a total of 51% of Internet-using Kaiser Permanente Hawaii members aged ≥13 years were registered on kp.org.

Can radiology be accessed through electronic health record?

Few organizations have reported providing radiology reports to patients via an electronic health record patient portal. The authors describe the process of manual release of reports made by referring physicians, and patients’ and referring physicians’ experiences during the first year that release through the portal was available.

What is a radiology report?

Background: Radiology reporting is a clinically oriented form of documentation that reflects critical information for patients about their health care processes. Realizing its importance, many medical institutions have started providing radiology reports in patient portals. The gain, however, can be limited because of medical language barriers, which require a way for customizing these reports for patients. The open-access, collaborative consumer health vocabulary (CHV) is a terminology system created for such purposes and can be the basis of lexical simplification processes for clinical notes. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the comprehensibility and suitability of CHV in simplifying radiology reports for consumers. This was done by characterizing the content coverage and the lexical similarity between the terms in the reports and the CHV-preferred terms. Methods: The overall procedure was divided into the following two main stages: (1) translation and (2) evaluation. The translation process involved using MetaMap to link terms in the reports to CHV concepts. This is followed by replacing the terms with CHV-preferred terms using the concept names and sources table (MRCONSO) in the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus. In the second stage, medical terms in the reports and general terms that are used to describe medical phenomena were selected and evaluated by comparing the words in the original reports with the translated ones. The evaluation includes measuring the content coverage, investigating lexical similarity, and finding trends in missing concepts. Results: Of the 792 terms selected from the radiology reports, 695 of them could be mapped directly to CHV concepts, indicating a content coverage of 88.5%. A total of 51 of the concepts (53%, 51/97) that could not be mapped are names of human anatomical structures and regions, followed by 28 anatomical descriptions and pathological variations (29%, 28/97). In addition, 12 radiology techniques and projections represented 12% of the unmapped concepts, whereas the remaining six concepts (6%, 12/97) were physiological descriptions. The rate of lexical similarity between the CHV-preferred terms and the terms in the radiology reports was approximately 72.6%. Conclusions: The CHV covered a high percentage of concepts found in the radiology reports, but unmapped concepts are associated with areas that are commonly found in radiology reporting. CHV terms also showed a high percentage of lexical similarity with terms in the reports, which contain a myriad of medical jargon. This suggests that many CHV terms might not be suitable for lay consumers who would not be facile with radiology-specific vocabulary. Therefore, further patient-centered content changes are needed of the CHV to increase its usefulness and facilitate its integration into consumer-oriented applications.

What is patient experience in radiology?

Patient experience is an important component of the overall medical encounter. This paper explores how patient experience is measured and its role in radiology, including its impact on clinical outcomes and reimbursement. Although typically applied to safety and clinical outcomes, quality improvement methodology can also be used to drive improvement efforts centered on patient experience. Applying an established framework for patient-centered care to radiology, this paper provides a number of examples of projects that are likely to yield significant improvement in patient satisfaction measures.

Why are patient portals important?

Patient portals are designed to be tools to more fully engage patients in their health care and help enable them to better manage their own health information. As the U.S. health care system rapidly adopted electronic health records (EHRs) over the past decade, many with linked patient portals, enthusiasm and expectations for this new technology as a means to engage and empower patients grew. Most patient portals have a set of core features designed to facilitate health care transactions, information tracking, and communication with care team members. The evidence supporting the anticipated benefits of patient portals on patient outcomes, however, remains mixed and incomplete. Moreover, a paradox exists in that, despite a high consumer interest in patient portals, widespread adoption remains relatively low. Potential reasons include the need for greater provider endorsement, examination and adaptation of clinical workflows, and the recognition of patient engagement as a reciprocal process.

What is the purpose of the article "Patient-Centered Care"?

Objective: The purpose of this article is to review the tools and opportunities available for patient-centered care in radiology and to create a quality patient-centered care process map to organize them for radiology practices. Conclusion: This article provides a review of the many opportunities to increase and improve patient-centered care in radiology. A process map that organizes and highlights key elements of patient-centered care throughout the radiology care process is provided that can be implemented to enhance the patient experience of our services and improve the quality of care provided.

How does communication help in imaging?

Communication between imaging professionals and patients can help achieve many goals , including improved patient understanding of imaging-related diagnostic and treatment options, better compliance with appropriate imaging screening procedures, and improved efficiency of service. The explosive growth of out-of-pocket consumer spending on health care has heightened health care shopping, thus making patient communication an important goal of any imaging practice or health care organization. Furthermore, the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System introduced by CMS will publicly disclose physicians’ quality ratings, which are in part dependent on patient engagement. The authors summarize the rationale for web communication with patients, the range of content that should be considered, and the technology options. The aim is to help imaging providers develop organized patient communication strategic and implementation plans.

Do radiology departments use compact disks?

Today, radiology departments still rely on compact disks to share imaging studies with patients. This practice is outdated as the majority of modern computers do not possess optical drives. In effect, hospitals are providing disks to patients to enable a single use, physical transport between two locations. This practice contrasts with the original goals of providing patients with their images: to empower ownership and provide transparency about their healthcare. The purpose of this manuscript is to implement an online platform for patient image viewing through an electronic health record patient portal. The number of study viewers was recorded daily over the first 90 days on our platform. During this time, the patients viewed 12,257 imaging studies. This represents 22% of the 56,413 imaging studies performed in our department. On average, there were 136 imaging studies viewed/day (range 52–250). We determined that an online platform enabling patients to view their images is feasible. At our hospital, a large percentage of patients quickly identified this feature and began using it to view their imaging studies.

What is the goal of a survey-based study?

Objective The goal of this survey-based study is to explore patients' knowledge of and expectations for radiologists in the outpatient setting. Materials and Methods A comprehensive survey was distributed to adult patients undergoing knee magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) over a one-year period from September 2015 through August 2016 at an urban, quaternary care academic medical center. Results The survey results demonstrate that only a subset of patients undergoing knee MRI at the institution during the survey period are aware of the role of the radiologist, which is a well-documented fact described in the literature. Approximately one-third of patients expected to meet the radiologist during their visit to the department of radiology to undergo a knee MRI. The vast majority of patients surveyed wanted to be able to contact the person who read their exam, but only one patient actually contacted the radiologist during the study period. Conclusion While the vast majority of surveyed patients wanted to be able to contact the person who read their knee MRI, only one patient actually did reach out to the radiologist to discuss findings. However, six of 36 follow-up respondents reported that they had contacted the person "who interpreted/read your exam:" two in person, one by email, three by phone, and one by other. Survey results demonstrated that only a subset of patients correctly understood the role of the radiologist (46% in the 1st survey and 63% in the 2nd survey, which does not represent a statistically significant difference), which suggests that perhaps the patients did have a conversation with a member of the radiology department staff whom they believed was actually the radiologist. The fact that patients expressed a desire to communicate with the person reading their reports, but then did not take advantage of the opportunity to contact the radiologist, suggests that the issue is more complicated than just a lack of a pathway for communication between patients and radiologists. Perhaps the lack of a clear understanding of the role of the radiologist hinders patients from contacting radiologists, as they feel uncertain as to whom they are actually attempting to reach. Or perhaps patients are sufficiently reassured by having a means through which they could contact the radiologist and do not require the actual communication in order to feel comfortable. There remains a significant amount of work to be done in understanding the barriers in patient-radiologist communications.

Who funded the C.B.J. study?

This study was funded by Stanford Health Care. C.B.-J. was supported by Grants No. T32HL007034-39 from the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute and 21BT-0018 from the California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program. Presented in part as a poster at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium, Phoenix, AZ, February 26-27, 2016.

What is shared decision making?

1 - 5 Shared decision making is a well-accepted patient-centric standard and has been accompanied by efforts to share information previously relatively inaccessible to patients.

Does sharing digital radiology and pathology records have a negative impact on patient communication?

Almost half of oncologists reported that sharing digital radiology and pathology records had a negative impact on their communication with patients. Patient surveys in similar cancer populations would complement the physician perspective. Efforts are needed to improve consensus among oncologists and patients on how to best communicate such results in a timely fashion.

What is an online patient portal?

Online patient portals are Web-based applications that enable patients to interact with their physician and with the electronic medical record system. Patient portals were introduced as a means of complying with meaningful use requirements of the Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Program ( 1 – 3 ). This program has been folded into the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, which encourages health care providers (ie, hospitals, physician groups, and clinics) to adopt and use technologic methods that allow patients to electronically view, download, and transmit electronic copies of their medical records. Although hospitals are implementing this technology at an accelerated rate, there is a lack of guidance regarding how best to release potentially sensitive information such as radiologic test results, which fosters variability in hospital policies. Some centers may prioritize the ability of the physician to communicate results before a patient is able to see them (resulting in a prolonged embargo period, ie, the length of time that must pass before results are automatically released to a patient, eg, 7–14 days), whereas other centers may prioritize the ability of the patient to view the results without physician oversight (resulting in a minimal embargo period, eg, 0–3 days).

Is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act nonregulated?

This Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act–compliant prospective quality improvement initiative was determined to be “nonregulated” by the initiating institution and “exempt” by the institutional review boards at the other participating institutions.

Figures

Number of unique patients who accessed their medical images in a longstanding online image portal during the 5 months before (n ¼ 1,925) and after (n ¼ 13,202) integration with the long-standing electronic health record patient portal.

References (8)

Radiologists communicate along multiple pathways, using written, verbal, and non-verbal means. Radiology trainees must gain skills in all forms of communication, with attention to developing effective professional communication in all forms.