If you utilize radiology reporting in your practice, you know how time-consuming and frustrating the process of generating reports can be. This is especially true if you rely on manually creating your reports, rather than dictating them, with the support of voice recognition software.

Creating and sharing reports is a vital part of any radiology workflow. For this reason, your picture archiving and communication system (PACS) needs to not only let radiologists generate and store images, but also create reports based on them.

While many cloud-based PACS on the market have reporting features, they are not all equally functional.

The field of teleradiology — in which radiologists view and interpret medical images in a geography that is separate from the scan location — has grown rapidly in recent years, with profound impacts on the medical industry. As in so many other cases, technology is able to connect specialized resources separated by geographic distance in pursuit of a common goal - patient diagnosis and treatment.

Radiologic technologists, or "rad techs" as they are often called, play a key role in the medical imaging supply chain, and they are often the people within the practice who take a hands-on, active role with the technology. They're also responsible for making sure medical imaging is of a high quality, and that it arrives in the correct hands. Recent technology advancements have improved their ability to share medical imaging electronically, greatly improving their workflow.

So how has this process improved and how are radiologic technologists taking advantage of electronic image sharing?

Veterinary radiology reports are the primary means, and sometimes the only method of communication between the radiologist and the referring physician. A good report is not only accurate, but is also clear, concise, and descriptive. An effective radiology report should serve to generate a mental picture of any concerns identified by the veterinary radiologist in the patient’s scan.