Clinical operations management in radiology.

Providing radiology services is a complex and technically demanding enterprise in which the application of operations management (OM) tools can play a substantial role in process management and improvement. This paper considers the benefits of an OM process in a radiology setting. Available techniques and concepts of OM are addressed, along with gains and benefits that can be derived from these processes.

Essential practice performance measurement.

The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of how to develop and implement a performance measurement system in radiology departments. Although an extensive literature review (PubMed, MEDLINE, etc) was carried out to search for relevant published scientific papers, the number of publications regarding performance indicators in radiology departments was very limited. The present paper reflects the current approach to performance measurement in health care services based on the available literature, which may be applied to the field of radiology.

Motivation and compensation in academic radiology.

As radiologists are increasingly faced with the challenges of rising demand for imaging services and staff shortages, the implementation of incentive plans in radiology is gaining importance. A key factor to be considered while developing an incentive plan is the strategic goal of the department. In academic radiology, management should decide whether it will reward research and teaching productivity in addition to clinical productivity.

Multi-detector row CT urography of normal urinary collecting system: furosemide versus saline as adjunct to contrast medium.

Purpose: To retrospectively evaluate whether intravenous furosemide, either alone or in addition to intravenous saline, improved depiction of the normal urinary collecting system at multi-detector row computed tomographic (CT) urography.

Materials And Methods: Institutional review board approval for review of patient images and medical records was obtained; informed consent was not required for this HIPAA-compliant study. Excretory phase images from multi-detector row CT urography in 87 patients (44 women, 43 men; age range, 21-83 years; mean, 53 years) were reviewed.

Combining classifiers using their receiver operating characteristics and maximum likelihood estimation.

In any medical domain, it is common to have more than one test (classifier) to diagnose a disease. In image analysis, for example, there is often more than one reader or more than one algorithm applied to a certain data set. Combining of classifiers is often helpful, but determining the way in which classifiers should be combined is not trivial.

Supratentorial low-grade glioma resectability: statistical predictive analysis based on anatomic MR features and tumor characteristics.

Purpose: To retrospectively assess the main variables that affect the complete magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-guided resection of supratentorial low-grade gliomas.

Materials And Methods: Institutional review board approval was obtained for this retrospective HIPAA-compliant study, with the requirement for informed consent waived. Data from 101 patients (61 men, 40 women; mean age, 39 years; age range, 18-72 years) who had nonenhancing supratentorial mass lesions that were histopathologically diagnosed as low-grade (World Health Organization grade II) gliomas and consecutively underwent surgery with intraoperative MR imaging guidance were analyzed.

Statistical combination schemes of repeated diagnostic test data.

Rationale And Objectives: When diagnostic tests are repeated and combined, a number of schemes may be adopted. Guidelines for their interpretations are required.

Materials And Methods: Three combination schemes, "and" (A), "or" (O), and "majority" (M), are considered.

The use of receiver operating characteristic curves in biomedical informatics.

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are frequently used in biomedical informatics research to evaluate classification and prediction models for decision support, diagnosis, and prognosis. ROC analysis investigates the accuracy of a model's ability to separate positive from negative cases (such as predicting the presence or absence of disease), and the results are independent of the prevalence of positive cases in the study population. It is especially useful in evaluating predictive models or other tests that produce output values over a continuous range, since it captures the trade-off between sensitivity and specificity over that range.

A global goodness-of-fit test for receiver operating characteristic curve analysis via the bootstrap method.

Objective: Medical classification accuracy studies often yield continuous data based on predictive models for treatment outcomes. A popular method for evaluating the performance of diagnostic tests is the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The main objective was to develop a global statistical hypothesis test for assessing the goodness-of-fit (GOF) for parametric ROC curves via the bootstrap.

Use of productivity and financial indicators for monitoring performance in academic radiology departments: U.S. nationwide survey.

Purpose: To determine how productivity- and finance-related indicators are used by radiology departments to evaluate departmental performance.

Materials And Methods: The study met the criteria to be exempt from institutional review board approval. All subjects were informed of the purpose of the study and that their questionnaire responses would be kept confidential.

Statistical validation of brain tumor shape approximation via spherical harmonics for image-guided neurosurgery.

Rationale And Objectives: Surgical planning now routinely uses both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) models that integrate data from multiple imaging modalities, each highlighting one or more aspects of morphology or function. We performed a preliminary evaluation of the use of spherical harmonics (SH) in approximating the 3D shape and estimating the volume of brain tumors of varying characteristics.

Materials And Methods: Magnetic resonance (MR) images from five patients with brain tumors were selected randomly from our MR-guided neurosurgical practice.

Practice management performance indicators in academic radiology departments.

Purpose: To determine the management performance indicators most frequently utilized in academic radiology departments in the United States.

Materials And Methods: This investigation met the criteria for an exemption from institutional review board approval. A cross-sectional study in which a validated national survey was sent to members of the Society of Chairmen of Academic Radiology Departments (SCARD) was conducted.