Articles: hospital-emergency-service.
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Emergency and radiology department directors at 517 acute-care US teaching hospitals were sent identical questionnaires surveying practice patterns of ED plain film radiograph interpretation. Fifty-seven percent of ED directors and 51% of radiology department (RD) directors responded. Both groups reported that the most common practice pattern (60%) was alternating responsibility for immediate interpretation between emergency physicians and radiologists during a 168-hour week. ⋯ Interpretation discrepancy rates between emergency physicians and radiologists were estimated to be 4% to 6%. The large amount of variation among hospitals in ED radiograph interpretation systems suggests that these systems were not designed with quality of care concerns as their primary criterion. As a consequence, objective patient outcome and process measures need to be developed and measured to ensure that a particular internal system for ED radiograph interpretation is providing an acceptably high standard of patient care.