Reporting radiology results to patients: keeping them calm versus keeping them under control

Patterns of Access to Radiology Reports and Images Through a Patient Portal

Access to radiology reports and images through a patient portal offers several advantages. The purpose of this study was to characterize patient's interactions with their radiology results. This was a retrospective study that evaluated radiography, ultrasound, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron emission tomography, exams performed between July 2020 and June 2021 for patients aged 12 and older. Exam information, access logs of radiology reports and images, and patient demographics were obtained from the electronic health record and image viewing software. Descriptive statistics were computed. The study included 1,685,239 exams. A total of 54.1% of reports were viewed. MRI and PET reports were viewed with the greatest frequency (70.2% and 67.6%, respectively); 25.5% of exam images were viewed, with the greatest frequency for MRI (40.1%). Exams were shared a total of 17,095 times and downloaded 8409 times; 64% of reports were viewed for patients aged 18-39 and 34% for patients aged 80 and greater. The rate of reports viewed was greater for patients with English as their preferred language (57.1%) compared to other languages (33.3%). Among those viewed, 56.5% of reports and 48.2% of images were viewed multiple times; 72.8% of images were viewed on smartphones, 25.8% on desktop computers, and 1.4% on tablets. Patients utilize a portal to view reports and view and share images. Continued efforts are warranted to promote the use of portals and create patient-friendly imaging results to help empower patients.

Supporting Families in Reviewing and Communicating about Radiology Imaging Studies

Diagnostic radiology reports are increasingly being made available to patients and their family members. However, these reports are not typically comprehensible to lay recipients, impeding effective communication about report findings. In this paper, we present three studies informing the design of a prototype to foster patient-clinician communication about radiology report content. First, analysis of questions posted in online health forums helped us identify patients' information needs. Findings from an elicitation study with seven radiologists provided necessary domain knowledge to guide prototype design. Finally, a clinical field study with 14 pediatric patients, their parents and clinicians, revealed positive responses of each stakeholder when using the prototype to interact with and discuss the patient's current CT or MRI report and allowed us to distill three use cases: co-located communication, preparing for the consultation, and reviewing radiology data. We draw on our findings to discuss design considerations for supporting each of these use cases.