Audit of radiology request forms –“Are they adequately filled?”

Rajanikanth Rao V

Pdf Page Numbers :- 41-44

 Rajanikanth Rao V^1,*

¹Clinical Director, Krishna Institute of Medical sciences, Minister Road, Secunderabad - 500003, AP, India

*Corresponding author: Prof. V. Rajanikanth Rao, MD, DMRD, Clinical Director, Krishna Institute of Medical sciences, Minister Road, Secunderabad - 500003, AP, India. Email: vedula@gmail.com

Received 14 October 2013; Revised 14 December 2013; Accepted 21 December 2013

Citation: Rajanikanth Rao V. Audit of radiology request forms –“Are they adequately filled?”. J Med Sci Res 2014; 2(1):41-44. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17727/JMSR.2014/2-008

Copyright: © 2014 Rajanikanth Rao V. Published by KIMS Foundation and Research Center. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Abstract

 The easiest and best way of communication between the Clinician and Radiologist is the radiograph request form. The physician seeking answers from the radiologist should give his requisites and relevant clinical data on the request form. Such a dialogue helps in diagnosis and patient management effectively. The present communication is an attempt to outline the adequacy of information on the request forms in different modalities in a multispecialty hospital. One hundered each of request forms from outpatient and inpatient services were selected at random. These requests were addressed to the Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) divisions of Department of Radiology, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad. The aim of the study was to audit the completeness and usefulness of these request forms. Clinical diagnosis was not given in 84 of the 200 forms (42 %) and clinical details were not mentioned in 124 forms (62 %). Patients’ age and sex were not given in a third of the forms (35 %). Interestingly 91 of the 200 forms (46 %) were signed by the nursing staff and not by the referring physician. In 20 % of the forms, the hand writing was not legible. Unacceptable abbreviations were used in majority of the forms. It became evident that the radiological investigation request forms are inadequately filled thus increasing the limitation of the radiologist to give an appropriate report.

Keywords: Radiology request forms; Radiation; CT Scan; MRI