HSS Study: MRI Quality All Over the Place

Orthopedics This Week—October 28, 2015

Orthopedics This Week dives into a recent study by Hospital for Special Surgery about the variation in MRI diagnoses due to differences in MRI quality. Richard Herzog, MD, FACR, director of Spinal Imaging and Chief of Teleradiology at HSS has been collaborating with The Spreemo Quality Research Institute on this study.

"People often make an effort to seek information and choose a doctor they believe will meet their needs, but they don't give the same consideration to choosing an imaging center," says Dr. Herzog. The study involved sending one patient with back and leg pain to 10 different imaging centers in 3 weeks.

"The results are in now, and our preliminary analysis shows substantial variation in the diagnoses reported," said Dr. Herzog. "While this was not particularly surprising to us, this level of variability in MRI results is largely underappreciated by the broader medical community and the public."

The study identified 3 key variables that determine the quality of imaging, the improvement of which may help to reduce this error rate.

Read the full article at Ryortho.com.