A team at Wayne State University-affiliated Trinity Health Oakland Hospital have designed a new programme that tracks incidental findings on body CT.
This new programme, known as The Radiology Finding Incidental Disease (FIND) Program has led to significantly boosted rates of clinician follow-up, as well as increased patient adherence to recommendations for their next exams.
Cases of 1,000 patients who received cross sectional CT prior to implementation of the FIND programme were reviewed and compared against 1,000 cases of patients who were scanned up to one year after the programme.
The focus was on any CT of the chest, abdomen or pelvis, as well as CT angiography, coronary calcium score CT and low-dose chest CT for lung cancer screening.
Following a comparison, the team discovered the post-intervention group had a higher rate of completion of recommended follow-up imaging (50.7%). Whereas the pre-programme group had a lower rate of completion of recommended follow-up imaging (30.8%).
It was also found that in emergency patients with incidental findings for which imaging follow-up was recommended, they had an increased adherence rate to follow-up recommendations in the post-intervention group (55%) compared to the pre-programme group (19.2%).
There was no significant difference in the clinical outcomes of incidental findings follow-up between the two groups.
The team conclude stating, “Programs such as FIND can help improve follow-up rates for incidental imaging findings, including in the emergency room setting, by providing reminders to physicians and patients. This can lead to earlier detection of disease and should be communicated to the patient clearly and with regard for how this may affect a patient’s overall well-being”.
Source: Journal of Digital Imaging
Image Source: iStoke
