Patient-Centered Radiology Reporting: Using Online Crowdsourcing to Assess the Effectiveness of a Web-Based Interactive Radiology Report

Purpose The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a patient-centered web-based interactive mammography report. Methods A survey was distributed on Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing platform. One hundred ninety-three US women ≥18 years of age were surveyed and then randomized to one of three simulated BI-RADS^® 0 report formats: standard report, Mammography Quality Standards Act–modeled patient letter, or web-based interactive report. Survey questions assessed participants’ report comprehension, satisfaction with and perception of the interpreting radiologist, and experience with the presented report. Two-tailed t tests and χ² tests were used to evaluate differences among groups. Results Participants in the interactive web-based group spent more than double the time viewing the report than the standard report group (160.0 versus 64.2 seconds, P <.001). Report comprehension scores were significantly higher for the interactive web-based and patient letter groups than the standard report group (P <.05). Scores of satisfaction with the interpreting radiologist were significantly higher for the web-based interactive report and patient letter groups than the standard report group (P <.01). There were no significant differences between the patient letter and web-based interactive report groups. Conclusions Radiology report format likely influences communication effectiveness. For result communication to a non-medical patient audience, patient-centric report formats, such as a Mammography Quality Standards Act–modeled patient letter or web-based interactive report, may offer advantages over the standard radiology report. Future work is needed to determine if these findings are reproducible in patient care settings and to determine how best to optimize radiology result communication to patients.