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Table 2 Relevant quotations from participants in the structured-reporting focus group

From: Structured reporting: if, why, when, how—and at what expense? Results of a focus group meeting of radiology professionals from eight countries

Quote number

Quote

1.

“Radiologists often write nice sentences, but the key information is hidden somewhere in the middle of the report.” (Rx-D1)

2.

“We have experience with the structured report of MR spectroscopy. We put a standard structure out of the ratio of metabolites and so forth, and at the end of the report you give an impression with those ratios.” (Rx-TK)

3.

“People who work in obstetrics […] use a standard report. People who work in cardiology, […] cardiological ultrasound and angio make structured reports.” (Rx-IL)

4.

“We have very detailed structures, like cardiac CT and such stuff.” (Rx-D2)

5.

“When I went to see this [structured reporting system], as I remember, I said ‘How do you get people to work with that?’ She said: ‘Well, here I’m the boss, and it’s either my way or the highway’.” (Rx-IL)

6.

“… when I read the report I want to know, I want to read it, I have to see the images in front of me… and I think structured reporting is not so easy as when you describe it.” (Rx-B)

7.

“It has to be automatic.” (Rx-D1)

8.

“Structured reporting for teleradiological purposes requires absolute consistency in the terminology. This concept is clearly conflicting with the need of radiologists to feel free of constraints.” (Rx-UK1)

9.

“The difficulty is to reach consensus… One radiologist is difficult, two radiologists are very difficult, and with three it’s impossible to have one structured report in the same pathology.” (IT-Fr)

10.

“In a structured report, one should be more precise than in a prose report, and sometimes we cannot be more precise. In a narrative report one can ‘dance’: a lesion may be metastatic, it should be followed and so forth… which is different from stating it is either metastatic or not. (Rx-TK)”

11.

“There’s always something on the paper that doesn’t fit in the structure. Even if you have a space for remarks, it’s difficult to make a structured report in which everything is included.” (Rx-B)

12.

“To whom are we writing reports? […] To other physician(s) and two groups, […] the physicians […] are related with (our department) […] (and in) general with some other physician with whom our cooperation is vague…” (Rx-PL)

13.

“I agree that you need to have some description of the procedure, […] a description of the findings, […] and you need a summarized conclusion of some sort or impression or interpretation of those findings. Yes, that kind of structure, yes, but not the fine detail of how to describe something using actual vocabulary.” (Rx-UK1)

14.

“Today, one CT scan provides more data than can be described in two pages of close text. Therefore, the really important information is in the conclusion.” (Rx-D3)

15.

“I think the ‘prose’ is the part that nobody reads. I think that part is there for the radiologist, not the clinician. If I read that part, I will understand it but the clinician won’t.” (Rx-B)

16.

“I have my template, you have your template—that’s not a structured report! A structured report is: here we’re going to have a standardized nomenclature, it’s going to look like BI-RADS.” (Rx-IL)

17.

“If it is coming with the system, then people would use it and then you have already a structured report.” (Rx-D1)

18.

“Moreover, there may be a huge difference between the input by the radiologist and the output, the way the information contained in the report is presented to the clinician. Despite some negative experience, the concept of data mining remains a trail to be further explored.” (Rx-UK1)

19.

“I think that’s where the pressure will come from—they will pay the more for radiology, the better the input from radiology is, and the more structure there is in the input, the better it will be for them, not for radiology, of course, it will put more workload to radiology.” (Rx-D3)

20.

“Structured reporting is coming our way, whether we like it or not. And when it comes, radiologists better be in the driver’s seat.” (Rx-IL)

21.

"I think there is one circumstance under which radiologists will reach a consensus, and that is if money comes into the equation.” (Rx-UK1)

  1. Abbreviations following the quotes can be understood as follows. The first part of the abbreviation identifies the type of practitioner:Rx radiologist,IT IT professional; the second part of the abbreviation identifies the participant’s country:B Belgium,D Germany,Fr France,I Italy,IL Israel,P Poland,TK Turkey,UK United Kingdom; the third part of the abbreviations is a number to distinguish different representatives of the same country