Rapid response: Alert system reminds clinicians to acknowledge results in timely manner

Implementing an electronic safety net for communicating imaging findings can help these results get acknowledged in a timely manner, often within 24 hours, according to a study published online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

According to the researchers, including Andrew Georgiou, PhD, with the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, failure to review and follow up on test results can negatively impact quality of care.

Georgiou and colleagues found that turning to health IT systems for help can be a means to improve both safety and quality of test management. The study followed response results following the 2010 installation of an electronic results acknowledgement (RA) system at Mater Mothers’ Hospital in Brisbane, Australia.

The RA interface consisted of an electronic tick box that required clinicians to indicate they had reviewed a result. Along with the tick box, an “unacknowledged test” list of results waiting for review and corresponding alerts if a patient’s results had been unacknowledged for more than three days.

In all, there were 679 imaging results included in the findings. All exam results were recorded as acknowledged, a feat that had not occurred during reviews of previous systems. The study found 44 percent of imaging results were acknowledged within 24 hours. The average time between a report’s availability and acknowledgement of imaging results was two days and 19 hours—with a median of one day and 18 hours.

In addition to imaging results, the researchers also studied response times and acknowledgement rates for laboratory results. On average, 60 percent of laboratory results were acknowledged within 24 hours and the median time between report availability and acknowledgement was 18.1 hours.

The authors wrote that results from the Mater Mothers’ Hospital RA study demonstrated ways in which health IT can contribute to innovation in work practices that lead to better patient care.

“In the future, across all hospitals, it should be reasonable to expect that clinicians, healthcare managers, and administrators will be able to immediately identify any existing problem related to a delay in test follow-up and to undertake the required clinical action at the time it is most needed to the patient,” Georgiou and team concluded.