John Stewart, CEO Being in a profession where attention to detail is a necessity, radiologists face a continual struggle between technologies that assist them in their profession versus those that act as a distraction. Although voice recognition systems fit well into the workflow of physicians in other medical specialties, these systems force radiologists to continually divert their attention away from the review of images and onto the voice recognition interface at the time the report is being generated. This introduces inefficiencies in the radiologist’s workflow and distractions which can result in reporting errors.
Founded in 2013, Scriptor Software is a radiologist-owned company that has developed a software program to improve radiologists’ productivity while reducing distractions during radiology report creation. This software checks reports for errors, verifies billing and coding compliance, validates MIPS compliance and even makes suggestions for the inclusion of follow-up recommendations based upon ACR guidelines. This is done through the use of a radiology knowledge base which is built into the software. John Stewart, the CEO of Scriptor Software says, “Our focus has expanded far beyond simply creating radiology reports to encompass nearly any task a radiologist may find useful.”
The team at Scriptor Software wanted to deviate from the common practice of creating a software suite and instead focus on a single application that could perform any number of useful tasks. The result of this effort was rScriptor, a program compatible with any voice recognition or word processing application. Unlike static templates, this software’s adaptive report template technology adjusts each template depending upon the patient demographics and dictated text.
Our focus has expanded far beyond simply creating radiology reports to encompass nearly any task a radiologist may find useful
Since the establishment of Scriptor Software’s solution in the market, it has been gaining much attention due to its ability to generate uniform radiology reports efficiently without compromising report quality. Practices that have delayed implementation of voice recognition technologies for years have used rScriptor as a way to mitigate the decrease in productivity caused by the introduction of these systems into a radiologist’s workflow. Others have taken advantage of the wealth of useful data captured by the program and included in the analytics reports generated monthly.
This software is not one-size-fits-all. The program can be tailored to meet the needs of any practice. Warning messages displayed to the radiologists by the software can be customized to perform nearly any task. For example, a teleradiology practice that uses rScriptor had a client who wanted a detailed description of the trachea in every pediatric chest radiology report. They simply forwarded that request to Scriptor Software and within a day the radiologists were receiving warnings to include the necessary description in their reports. It is this level of concierge reporting that makes a radiology practice stand out amongst its peers. The same practice saw a 93 percent reduction in the need for addenda the month after the software was fully rolled out. “This is the type of change that gets noticed and will be increasingly important as reimbursement transitions from a volume-based system to a quality-based system,” adds Stewart.
Used across the U.S. and in 16 countries around the world, rScriptor generates 600,000 reports every month. But this represents only a small percentage of the radiology reports being generated worldwide. The company sees tremendous growth opportunity in the coming years. Scriptor Software also plans to apply its technology to other medical specialties in the near future. With data analytics and artificial intelligence in the picture, Stewart believes that they can improve the care of patients worldwide.
