Presence of Patient Photographs Helps Radiologists Identify Mismatched Images

Including photographs of patients along with their radiographs increased radiologists’ ability to detect errors involving patient identification, according to the results of a study published in the April 2013 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology. The study acquired 88 pairs of recent and prior chest radiographs from 34 patients and split them into two sets of 20 pairs. Both sets contained intentional mismatches (paired radiographs from two different patients); however, the second set also included photographs of the patients taken at the time of imaging. Participating radiologists were then asked to interpret the images, but were not told the purpose of the photographs.