RadPro AI Blog/Workflow
Is a New Reporting Workflow Worth the Time? A Break-Even Table for Radiologists
How much setup and learning time a new reporting workflow can cost before it stops paying back, in one table, and how we keep the slow first weeks short.
A new way of reporting costs time before it saves any. The table shows how much time a change gives back in a year, which is the most it is worth spending to get started.
| Time saved per report | Reports a day it helps with | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 a day | 5 a day | 10 a day | 20 a day | 40 a day | |
| 10 seconds | 1 hour 15 min | 3 hours 15 min | 6 hours 30 min | 13 hours | 26 hours |
| 30 seconds | 3 hours 45 min | 9 hours 30 min | 19 hours | 38 hours | 2 weeks |
| 1 minute | 7 hours 45 min | 19 hours | 38 hours | 2 weeks | 4 weeks |
| 2 minutes | 15 hours | 38 hours | 2 weeks | 4 weeks | 7.5 weeks |
| 5 minutes | 38 hours | 2.5 weeks | 5 weeks | 9.5 weeks | 19 weeks |
| 10 minutes | 2 weeks | 5 weeks | 9.5 weeks | 19 weeks | not believable |
How to use it
- Pick the row: how much time the change saves on one report.
- Pick the column: how many reports a day it helps with. Count only those.
- The cell is the time you get back in a year.
Saving two minutes on five complex CTs a day gives back 38 hours a year. A tool that helps with pan-scans does nothing for a knee X-ray, so count the CTs, not your whole worklist.
The slow first weeks
For a while you are slower, because you check everything twice. When radiology moved to speech recognition, most studies found radiologists at least 10 percent slower at first (Weiss). Using the example above:
- Setup: 1 hour.
- First two weeks: 3 extra minutes on each of 5 cases a day, or 2.5 hours.
- After that: 10 minutes saved a day.
- You break even after about six weeks and finish the year about 33 hours ahead.
If the slow period lasts two months, breaking even takes nearly half the year. A short learning period matters more than a big promised saving.
How we keep it short
- Dictate as you do now. Paste a full report, a findings list, or the exam name with findings. There are no settings to choose.
- Try it first. A sample case runs in one click.
- Bring your templates. Import them from your dictation system in Settings. On Premium, RadPro AI fills in your own template, so the report still reads like yours.
- Skip copy and paste. On Windows, the free RadPro Hub sends the report over and pastes the result back with one key each.
If something slowed you down, tell us on the contact page.
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