Teleradiology consultation for a rural hospital: Patterns of use

Rationale and Objective. The authors documented quantitatively how teleradiology was used for contemporaneous consultation with a radiologist by physicians at a small rural hospital. Materials and Methods. The authors collected 31/2 years worth of data at a small hospital on all patients (n = 327) for whom a radiologist's consultation by teleradiology was requested and compared the data with those from a control group of 309 patients whose studies were interpreted at the same hospital. Results. Teleradiology consultation was requested by the attending physician in 3.6% (519 of 14,586) of all examinations performed during the study period. Physicians requested teleradiology consultation most often for patients with multiple examinations (average 1.59 vs 1.35 for controls). Examinations of infants were 10 times more prevalent in the teleradiology group than in the control group. The indication for most (52%) teleradiology consultations was trauma. Requests for interpretation of spine and abdominal radiographs were relatively more frequent than were those of other studies. Conclusion. Physicians in this rural practice used contemporaneous radiologic consultation for selected specific examinations, with emphasis on examinations for trauma, spine, abdomen, and the infant age group.