Impact of turnaround time in radiology: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Abstract

Turnaround time (TAT) has evolved into a complex metric in the current era of diagnostic radiology. Initially monitoring a radiologist's ability to efficiently generate a report, there is now a hierarchy of stakeholders who are affected by its modern-day interpretation and use. This article explores "more than the metric" and reviews the multi-faceted use and implementation of TAT through the lens of a large academic hospital network. The authors highlight "The Good" of turnaround time as a useful quality metric that guides patient outcomes, organizational performance, and revenue generation, and they discuss how it has been implemented at their institution to positively influence workflow and guide departmental staffing. The "bad" implications of TAT are discussed, which can strain radiology departmental workflows and propagate issues such as delays in finalizing reports for inpatient and outpatient worklists in the setting of rapidly growing imaging volumes. Broader systemic issues of TAT are discussed within "The Ugly" section of this review, which highlights TAT's negative impact on resident education, physician burnout, and its creation of "New School" and "Old School" radiologist practices. The article provides further discussion of existing strategies and future directions that can mitigate the negative impacts of TAT, including various staffing models, approaches to optimize workflow systems, and methods for re-prioritizing STAT cases using artificial intelligence. The authors conclude with a call for balanced, continued implementation of TAT as a metric but not at the expense of sacrificing the quality of work performed by radiologists and trainees.