Purpose
The CT Facility Comparison Report provides insight into Corporate Account and Facility performance as compared to the registry as a whole for the dose indices' measures: CTDIvol, Dose Length Product (DLP), and Size-Specific Dose Estimate (SSDE). Report data are refreshed daily to provide up-to-date information.
Access and Navigation
Log in to the NRDR Portal and select DIR under the Quality Improvement Registries section. Then, under the Reports section, select CT Facility Comparisons.
Upon opening the report, select the About this Report tab for more information about the report's components and calculations. Each report tab contains a blue info icon that has more information about the reports functionality
Report Features
Comparisons Report
This report shows the Corporate Account and affiliated Facilities dose indices' median performance for each dose measure compared to registry quartiles. To generate the report, select a corporate account from the menu. By default, the report shows data for each facility within the selected corporate account for the most recent quarter available. To switch to Corporate Account-level data, select Corporate Account from the Show Data by the filter at the top of the report.
The report has several filters that support a variety of views, e.g., by measure type, exam, age group, etc. The symbol size in the top scatterplot graph denotes relative exam volume. The color-coding shows a facility's median exam performance for various dose measures that fall into one of four categories:
Below 25th percentile (blue): Indicates the facility’s median performance value falls below the 25th percentile for the registry for the selected measure; that is, the facility’s dose levels are generally lower than the entire registry. This is can be good provided the lower radiation doses are not at the expense of image and diagnostic quality.
Between 25th and 75th percentile (green): The facility median was between the registry's 25th and 75th percentiles, about on par with the registry.
Above 75th percentile (red): The facility median was above the registry 75th percentile which could indicate a need to investigate the higher value results.
Insufficient data for comparison (light blue and code -9): Too little registry data is available for comparison purposes. The registry must have data for at least 100 exams and 10 different facilities at the selected reporting level.
The example below shows a single Facility's results for the measure CTDIvol Max Across All Scans, for all exams with a volume of 15 or more, performed in the first quarter of 2022, and for all age groups. The facility's median measure-performance value of 11.7% for 257 CT CHEST W IV CON exams performed in the first quarter of 2022 falls between the 25th and 75th percentile of all registry exams for 2021.
Click a symbol in the scatterplot to highlight the exam in the table (see screenshot below). Select the exam to display a pop-up box that allows you to link to the Exams and Trends tab to view individual exam results along with trends over time (click Drill to individual Exams link) and to access the Short Name Lookups tab to see how the Short Name is mapped to Radlex Playbook IDs (RPIDs) and Study Descriptions (click Look up Short Name link).
Exams and Trends
As described above in the Comparison report section, to populate the Exams and Trends report, you must select a single exam and age group in the Facility Median/Registry Median table.
By selecting a point in the scatterplot graph in the Exams and Trends tab, you can view exam-specific data. The example below shows the results of just one scanner (Device). For facilities with multiple scanners performing the same exam, each scanner will have a unique symbol. The dashed line (outlined in red in the example below) represents the Facility median.
Short Name Lookups
To support robust dose measure comparisons, RPIDs are aggregated to a standardized report Short Name that combines virtually the same, or sufficiently similar, RPIDs. The Short Name Lookups tab shows how a facility’s RPIDs map to the Short Names in the report, and their Study Descriptions. Select the tab to view the full list of Short Name mappings or, as described in the Comparison report section above, select a specific Exam Short Name and Age Group in the Facility Median/Registry Median table in the Comparison report and click the Look up Short Name link in the pop-up box to view mappings for a specific exam.
Below are the detailed descriptions of each column in the table
Short Name to look for in report – The Short Name to which RPIDs have been mapped
Age Group – Mappings are for Adult (Over 18) or Pediatric exams
RPIDs used for facility’s statistics – The facility’s RPID mapped to the Short Name
Facility Study Description – The exam name mapping (study description to RPID) as defined by the facility
RPIDs used for Registry statistics – Which RPIDs are mapped to the Short Name across all sites in the registry for the comparison time period
RPID Short Name – The Short Name for the RPID
Facility – The individual Facility ID to which the row applies
