Will adding patient’s photos help radiologists?
posted in - Offbeat news, - Palmdoc |
Here’s an off-beat idea: if you add a patient’s photograph to the file, it will help the radiologist remember that behind that X-ray is a real human being and perhaps improve reporting accuracy. From the WSJ
But at a Radiological Society of North America conference where 4,000 studies are being presented this week, Dr. Turner’s is receiving extraordinary attention, in part because it implies that radiologists don’t always remember that patients are people. “It’s controversial,” says Linda Brooks, an RSNA spokeswoman.
In the study, 15 radiologists at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem reviewed computed tomography images along with a photograph of the patient. Months later they reviewed the same CT scan but without a photo. A control group of radiologists also twice-reviewed CT scans with no photographs at all. About 300 patients participated in the study.
In the most eye-popping result, the absence of a photograph was associated with an 80% drop in so-called incidental findings, such as when a search for kidney stones turns up a tumor. Incidental findings are often life-saving because they discover pre-symptomatic problems, and the study suggests that radiologists look more carefully for them when a patient photograph is attached.
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December 5th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Good idea though I don’t know how workable it is. I mean, won’t the patient’s details be compromised? I would like to send patient’s photo to other health professionals who do not deal with patients directly like microbiologists and pathologists as well.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Well I guess they could make the image digitally available for the radiologists’ eyes only.