Radiology reporting, past, present, and future: the radiologist's perspective

Abstract

Although imaging technologies have undergone dramatic evolution over the past century, radiology reporting has remained largely static, in both content and structure. Existing free-text (prose) reports have been criticized for a number of inherent deficiencies, including inconsistencies in content, structure, organization, and nomenclature. A number of new initiatives and technologies now present the radiology community with the unique opportunity to fundamentally change the radiology report from free to structured text. These new developments include a standardized nomenclature (RadLex), automated information technologies (picture archiving and communications systems and electronic medical records), and automated data tracking and analysis software (natural-language processing). Despite the increasing availability of these tools and technologies for revolutionizing reporting, clinical, psychologic, legal, and economic challenges have collectively limited structured reporting to mammography. These challenges are most evident in the current environment of heightened expectations for improved quality, timeliness, and communication, along with increasing stress, fatigue, and malpractice concerns. In conclusion, the authors present an alternative to traditional reporting that attempts to address some of these diverse challenges while incorporating the aforementioned initiatives and technologic developments. This approach uses a graphical symbol language that is directly mapped to a standardized lexicon (RadLex) and is automatically converted into a structured hierarchical text report, which can then be much more easily searched and analyzed.