The NRDR has announced 3 important changes to the DIR
- The
DIR is dropping support of Secondary Capture images as a means for cataloging
doses and will accept only Radiation Dose Structured Reports (RDSRs) at some
point in the near future;
- The
DIR is retiring the following 3 Operational Reports and will, instead, make
this information available in a recently added set of Interactive Reports due
for release in July, 2019; and,
- The DIR is hosting a webinar to review the new Interactive Reports on June
27, 2019.
I have included the NRDR’s email announcing each change at
the end of this email.
Secondary Capture Discussion:
The first email copied below was sent to a facility which is
currently using a CT platform which is not sending RDSRs to report doses, but
is sending Secondary Capture images instead.
As you will see, the email asks that facilities switch to RDSRs by
September 3, 2019. It adds that scanners
which send Secondary Capture Images in addition to RDSRs may continue to send
secondary capture images, they just won’t be used.
If your scanner is natively XR-29 compliant you should (or are
able to be) sending RDSRs. If your
scanner is not XR-29 compliant and/or you purchased a third-party solution to
achieve XR-29 compliance, you should speak your system’s service engineers
and/or your third-party solution support desk as to whether or not you can send
RDSRs.
As the NRDR wrote in its email below, if you have barriers
to sending RDSRs (MB: Or if you just have questions) they are happy to work
with you. Simply contact the National
Radiology Data Registry support team at nrdrsupport@acr.org
for assistance. I’ve had many occasions
to work with the Help Desk and have always found them very professional and
helpful.
Retiring of 3 Operational Reports and the Addition of several Interactive Reports
The second email copied below is the NRDR’s announcement of
several reporting changes, specifically the retiring of the following
Operational Reports:
- Dose
Information by Exam;
- CTDIvol
Over Time; and,
- Summary
of Data Submitted.
These will be replaced by the following Interactive Reports
- CT
Standardized Dose Index Reports: Exam Search
- CTDIvol
Standardized Dose Index Reports: Scatterplot Over Time; and,
- CT
Summary of Data Submitted.
I’ve used all three Operational Reports as well as their new
Interactive Report counterparts and have found the new Interactive Reports
superior to their older counterparts.
While change generally requires a learning curve, this learning curve is
fairly short and intuitive. One of the
main benefits of the new reports is that they provide much more flexibility to
design the report and obtain either overall or the limited data sets you are
interested in reviewing on demand – by facility, by scanner, by RPID, by Exam
Name, by data, etc. Give it a try and
spend an hour or so testing it out – I think you’ll like it.
Interactive Report Webinar
The third email below is the announcement of a webinar to
review the new Interactive Report features.
The webinar, titled New DIR CT Interactive Reports Webinar, is scheduled for Jun 27, 2019 1:30 PM EDT. Click here
to register.
————————- NRDR Emails ————————-
Ending of Support for DIR Secondary Capture Email
Dear DIR Participant,
Thank you for your ongoing participation in the American
College of Radiology’s (ACR) Dose Index Registry (DIR). Your participation
in the registry not only affects quality improvement at your own facility, but
also establishes benchmarks that other facilities use for performance
comparison and ultimately to reduce unnecessary patient radiation exposure
across all participant sites.
When we launched the DIR in 2011 few CT scanners were
capable of generating Radiation Dose Structured Reports (RDSRs).
Therefore, we accepted exams directly from a RDSR as well as from secondary
capture images (without RDSR). In the years since the registry launch,
and with the implementation of the XR-29 standard on CT scanners, most scanners
submitting DIR data are now capable of producing RDSRs. In addition, the
secondary capture method has proven to be less effective than RDSR in terms of
data quality, information processing time, and resource support
requirements. In response to the industry technology changes, and to the
overall limitations of secondary capture, we would like to transition DIR
support to RDSR submission only. Consequently, we are requesting
that all sites shift submission of all of their registry data to the RDSR
format as soon as possible.
Your site is one of several identified as sending secondary
capture images without RDSRs in the past three months. As such, we ask
that you switch over to RDSR transmission by September 3, 2019.
Though we would prefer to receive the RDSR message exclusively, we can accept
an accompanying secondary capture (it will not be processed) in the event your
system mandates sending both.
The continued success of the Dose Index Registry and the
resulting improvement in radiological quality is dependent on active
participation by sites such as yours. We realize that making this change
may result in modifications to your processes/systems with potential effort
required by you. ACR thanks you in advance for your willingness to
consider this change. If you have barriers to sending the RDSR we will be
more than happy to work with you in an attempt to overcome these issues.
Please contact the National Radiology Data Registry support team at nrdrsupport@acr.org
for assistance.
—————————————————
Retiring of 3 Operational Reports and Addition of new Interactive Reports Email
Dear DIR User,
In the beginning of July we will be
retiring the following DIR Operational Reports: Dose Information by Exam,
CTDIvol Over Time, and Summary of Data Submitted. The same content
in the Operational Report can be found in a corresponding Interactive
Report.
| Operational Report | Interactive Report |
|
Dose Information by Exam
|
CT Standardized Dose Index Reports: Exam
Search
|
|
CTDlvol Over Time
|
CT Standardized Dose Index Reports:
Scatterplot Over Time
|
|
Summary of Data Submitted
|
CT Summary of Data Submitted
|
We have implemented Interactive Reports which
allows users to query, filter, and navigate through data to identify patterns
and gain insights on their data. During the next few weeks, we encourage
you to familiarize yourself with the Interactive Reports. Included at the
end of the email are links to articles outlining the use and content of these
Interactive Reports. We are also available at nrdrsupport@acr.org to answer any questions you may have about the reports.
DIR
Interactive Reports
CT
Standardized Dose Index Reports: Exam Search
CT
Standardized Dose Index Reports: Scatterplot Over Time
—————————————————
Webinar to Discuss New Interactive Reports Email
Dear DIR Participants,
Please register for New DIR CT Interactive Reports
Webinar on Jun 27, 2019 1:30 PM EDT at:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4707038265377226754
Our upcoming webinar will focus on the next set of
Interactive Reports for the Dose Index Registry due for release in July, 2019.
These reports will allow users to quickly identify which exam Short Names are
outliers (compared to the entire registry) and drill-down to see both
individual exams and long-term data trends. We’ll also cover new reports for
downloading data in a format similar to the existing quarterly Excel reports.
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