Residents' Performance in the Interpretation of On-Call “Triple-Rule-Out” CT Studies in Patients with Acute Chest Pain

Rationale and Objectives To evaluate the performance of radiology residents in the interpretation of on-call, emergency “triple-rule-out” (TRO) computed tomographic (CT) studies in patients with acute chest pain. Materials and Methods The study was institutional review board–approved and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliant. Data from 617 on-call TRO studies were analyzed. Dedicated software enables subspecialty attendings to grade discrepancies in interpretation between preliminary trainee reports and their final interpretation as “unlikely to be significant” (minor discrepancies) or “likely to be significant” for patient management (major discrepancies). The frequency of minor, major and all discrepancies in resident's TRO interpretations was compared to 609 emergent non–electrocardiography (ECG)-synchronized chest CT studies using Pearson χ2 test. Results Minor discrepancies occurred more often in the TRO group (9.1% vs. 3.9%, P