Improving diagnosis: advances in radiology

Diagnostic radiologists are uniquely positioned to make a difference in the reduction of diagnostic errors in medicine, which was identified as a national priority in a special report of the National Academies of Medicine in 2015. Interest in diagnostic error reduction within the specialty of diagnostic radiology has been accelerated in recent years by the adoption of rapidly evolving technological and process-based solutions for previously identified vulnerabilities (i.e., potential failure modes) in the radiology workflow that are known to increase the risk of errors. Here we describe a range of such potential failure modes contributing to diagnostic error in the practice of diagnostic radiology and summarize evolving efforts to mitigate them. These include fostering the adoption of peer learning and other feedback and education programs, a range of measures under development for ongoing performance evaluation of radiologists and their work-processes, and the deployment of new technologies, most notably artificial intelligence tools, to augment human performance and thereby improve diagnostic accuracy in Radiology.