Patient pictures improve radiologist’s care

A patient’s picture may help improve the performance of radiologists, new Israeli research has found.

The picture in question is not a digital x-ray but simple snap of the patient, showing their face.

Radiologists often have little direct contact with patients, but showing them a photo of the test subject can help improve their performance, the researchers told delegates at the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago.

According to the researchers the photo reminds the radiologist that the test subject is not just a case but a person.

"Photographs of faces have an impact on quality," Dr Yehonatan Turner of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, said an interview with Reuters Health

Dr Turner said doctors who saw a patient’s picture when they opened up an electronic file were more meticulous and more aggressive at looking for suspicious findings.

In the study Dr Turner and research colleagues evaluated the quality of reports on 318 patients who underwent computed tomography, or CT scans, an advanced type of X-ray. The exams were later reviewed by 15 radiologists.

Three months later, 81 of the exams which contained unexpected abnormalities – known as incidental findings – that were spotted by the radiologists when a picture was included in the file – were shown again to the doctors without the photograph present.

According to Reuters Health the researchers found that out of the cases that were presented twice, doctors missed these incidental findings 80 percent of the time when the photograph was omitted from the file.

Each patient agreed to be photographed prior to the exam and these images were added to their electronic files, appearing automatically when the file was opened.

Turner said the photographs appear to make the radiologists more mindful of what is at stake for patients. "Adding a photo had a positive impact on a radiologist’s performance," Turner said.