Telemedicine-based system for quality management and peer review in radiology

• DOI: 10.1007/s13244-018-0629-y
• Publication Date: 2018-05-18T17:09:22Z
• Authors: Sergey Morozov; Ekaterina Guseva; Natalya Ledikhova; Anton Vladzymyrskyy; Dmitry Safronov
• Keywords: Diagnostic errors; Medical physics. Medical radiology. Nuclear medicine; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Teleradiology; R895-920; Original Article; Radiology; Quality; Peer review; 3. Good health

Quality assurance is the key component of modern radiology. A telemedicine-based quality assurance system helps to overcome the "scoring" approach and makes the quality control more accessible and objective.A concept for quality assurance in radiology is developed. Its realization is a set of strategies, actions, and tools. The latter is based on telemedicine-based peer review of 23,199 computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images.The conception of the system for quality management in radiology represents a chain of actions: "discrepancies evaluation - routine support - quality improvement activity - discrepancies evaluation". It is realized by an audit methodology, telemedicine, elearning, and other technologies. After a year of systemic telemedicine-based peer reviews, the authors have estimated that clinically significant discrepancies were detected in 6% of all cases, while clinically insignificant ones were found in 19% of cases. Most often, problems appear in musculoskeletal records; 80% of the examinations have diagnostic or technical imperfections. The presence of routine telemedicine support and personalized elearning allowed improving the diagnostics quality. The level of discrepancies has decreased significantly (p < 0.05).The telemedicine-based peer review system allows improving radiology departments' network effectiveness.• "Scoring" approach to radiologists' performance assessment must be changed. • Telemedicine peer review and personalized elearning significantly decrease the number of discrepancies. • Teleradiology allows linking all primary-level hospitals to a common peer review network.