PACS workstations in the emergency department: impact on workflow in radiology and emergency medicine

摘要

Abstract: A study of timings of different events from thescheduling of an Emergency Department (ED) examinationto the final reporting of it and review by the EDphysician showed some expected and unexpected findings.Both computed radiography (CR) on film and CR usingPACS were studied. The move of daytime reading of EDradiographs out of the Radiology reading area in the EDto a reading room in Radiology lengthened the time fromwhen the request was sent to the time when the imageswere reviewed by the ED physician (1.02 hours to 1.29hours). Despite anecdotal reports of increased readingtime at workstations, the radiologists' use of PACS forreading ED radiographs resulted in a slight improvementin the time between the examination completion andreport dictation (0.43 hours to 0.3 hours). Recently,we have found that there may be a workload effect onthis time and this is presently being analyzed. Thetime from the sending of the request for an examinationto the first review of the images by the ED physicianwas shortened with implementation of a PACS workstationin the clinical area of the ED (1.35 hours to 0.92hours). A surprising finding was the impact the changeto PACS had on the time between sending the request andthe technologist's completion of the requestedexamination. The time increased with PACS from 0.45hours for film-based CR to 0.8 hours for PACS. Severalstudies are ongoing to determine the causes of thisincrease. !5