Dr Sarah Howling,The Whittington Hospital

What is the effect of the location of the radiologist on efficiency when plain film reporting? · One of the aims in an imaging department is to maximise plain film reporting output and to find strategies to facilitate this · At the Whittington Hospital, consultant plain film reporting is now possible in 2 locations: (1)consultant radiologist's offices. This can be done within normal working hours 9-5, or at the beginning or end of the day, or at weekends.
(2)It is also possible to report plain films in the reporting room in the centre of the department The aim of this audit was to measure how many plain films are on average reported hourly by a consultant radiologist in each of these 2 locations during normal working hours and to compare this with out of hours reporting. A measure was also be made of the number of interruptions on each occasion.