Zahir A. Momin MD, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Walter A. Carpenter MD, PhD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Douglas D. Robertson MD, PhD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Integration of teaching file tool in the workflow significantly simplified and reduced the time and effort to collect teaching cases. The ease of use encouraged users to submit more cases. The cases are mineable in the database and browseable on the PACS station. Operative notes and surgical images are being imported into this database to create a comprehensive patient centric rather than diagnosis centric teaching file.  

Various implementations of teaching files are available in the marketplace. Most of the implementations are excellent at presenting the teaching file images and relevant textual data. Not many simplify or streamline the process of creating cases. Our goal was to create a tool that integrates into the voice recognition software to automatically collect relevant patient demographic and study data. The user is only required to enter keywords or description relating to the case.

The tool has been used on 5 PACS workstations. During the read out seesion, if a case is deemed interesting, the tool is launched from the toolbar. Upon launching, it captures the patient demographic and study information in addition to names of trainees and radiologist. The user is asked for keywords/description relevant to the case. That data is automatically entered into the database. The teaching file cases can be retrieved from the database based on keywords, subspecialty, attending/trainee name, and/or modality. The interesting cases may be browsed on the PACS station The number of cases submitted into the departmental teaching file were compared between 5 radiologists and 4 fellows each not using the tool and then using the tool for a month. Comparisons were made between the number of cases submitted, radiologist time, and ease of use.  

Use of the teaching file creation tool increased total montly cases submitted from 25 to 89. The tool significantly decreased the average time the radiologist used to mark a teaching case(p<0.05). Ease of use increased significantly from 1/5 to 4.5/5.  

Momin, Z, Carpenter, W, Robertson, D, Teaching File Creation Tool.  Radiological Society of North America 2011 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, November 26 - December 2, 2011 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2011/11013793.html