Objective: This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a dual digital alert system and automatic radiologist reassignment in improving the efficiency of quantitative imaging report delivery for clinical trials.
Materials and methods: Assessing tumor metrics is critical to oncologic disease management, informed treatment planning, and for monitoring therapeutic response and even more so in cancer clinical research trials. A collaborative effort with the Institutional Research Information Systems division led to developing a web-based system with a Java backend, tested using Agile methodology to improve patient care with improved turnaround time (TAT) of quantitative reports. The system sent dual digital alerts including a page and an email notification to the radiologist based on the last submitted date and time for each QIAC report and autoreassigned radiologists till report finalization. Data was extracted from the Quantitative Imaging Analysis Core database for comparing the TAT, calculated as time difference between the submission of preliminary reports by Imaging Research Specialists and the finalization by radiologists before and after the digital alert system implementation.
Results: Implementing the dual digital alert system significantly increased the number of cases finalized within 6 hours to 50%. For nonexpedited cases, the mean TAT decreased by 57.2% from 85.9 hours to 36.8 hours (P < 0.001). Expedited cases saw a reduction in mean TAT by 63.7% from 44.9 hours to 16.3 hours (P = 0.022). Baseline and follow-up cases also showed significantly reduced mean and median TAT after deployment (P < 0.001).
Conclusions: The dual digital alert system and automatic radiologist reassignment significantly improved the TAT for quantitative imaging reports in clinical trials. This enhancement in report delivery efficiency led to better therapeutic decision making and increased patient satisfaction in clinical settings.
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