Radiology triage system improves urgent care

An automated triage system (ARTS) is helping radiologists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center move quickly on studies requiring immediate attention.

To assure that studies of the most critically ill patients are interpreted first, Cincinnati Children's developed a department-wide automated radiology triage system, which was described at the 2005 SCAR meeting. The system allows technologists to indicate the level of urgency for each patient. ARTS also provides a mechanism for technologists and radiologists to communicate about patients requiring immediate attention. It constantly updates the active radiologist work list, ensuring that studies are read in an order more appropriate than first-in, first-out.

ARTS offers a snapshot view of all active patients and includes a time-to-report function that allows technologists and front desk staff to keep patients informed of the time remaining to completion of their study interpretation.