Effects of Changing the Reporting System from Decentralized/Modality-Based to Centralized/Subspecialized Radiology on Radiologists, Radiologic Technicians and Referring Physicians of a Multi-Center Radiology Network

Objectives
To determine the effects of reorganizing a radiology institute from decentralized/modality-based to centralized/subspecialized radiology on radiologists, radiologic technicians, and referring physicians at a multi-center radiology network.

Material and Methods
In 2017/2018 our multi-center radiology network was changed from decentralized/modality-based to centralized/subspecialized reporting. A survey was conducted among radiologists, technicians and two groups of referring physicians (main hospital and non-main hospitals). The following items were tested: Overall satisfaction, perceived quality of radiological reports, subjective productivity/efficiency, confidence of radiologists in their subspecialty, availability of radiologists and turnaround time. Two of five answering options on a 5-point Likert scale were considered to represent agreement. The Mann-Whitney-U-test served for statistical analyses in agreement before and after reorganization in each group.

Results
For radiologists, a significant difference was observed in perceived quality of radiological reports 42/46 (91.3%) compared to 51/52 (98.1%; p = 0.013).For technicians, no significant differences were observed. In the group of main hospital referring physicians, significant differences were observed in overall satisfaction 129/152 (84.9%) compared to 164/174 (94.3%; p < 0.001) and in perceived quality of radiological reports 125/148 (72.8%) compared to 157/170 (92.4%; p = 0.001). In the group of non-main hospital referring physicians no significant differences were observed.