Impact of digital radiography on clinical workflow

It is commonly accepted that digital radiography (DR) improves workflow and patient throughput compared with traditional film radiography or computed radiography (CR). DR eliminates the film development step and the time to a cquire the image from a CR reader. In addition, the wide dynamic range of D R is such that the technologist can perform the quality-control (QC) step d irectly at the modality in a few seconds, rather than having to transport t he newly acquired image to a centralized OC station for review. Furthermore , additional workflow efficiencies can be achieved with DR by employing tig ht radiology information system (RIS) integration. In the DR imaging enviro nment, this provides for patient demographic information to be automaticall y downloaded from the RIS to populate the DR Digital Imaging and Communicat ions in Medicine (DICOM) image header. To learn more about this workflow ef ficiency improvement, we performed a comparative study of workflow steps un der three different conditions: traditional film/screen x-ray, DR without R IS integration (ie, manual entry of patient demographics), and DR with RIS integration. This study was performed at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (C leveland, OH) using a newly acquired amorphous silicon flat-panel DR system from Canon Medical Systems (Irvine, CA). Our data show that DR without RIS results in substantial workflow savings over traditional film/screen pract ice. There is an additional 30% reduction in total examination time using D R with RIS integration. Copyright (C) 2000 by W.B. Saunders Company.