Differences between Highly Rated vs Poorly Rated Patient Ratings of Radiology Reports

To evaluate differences in quantitative features between poorly versus highly rated patient ratings of radiology reports. A HIPAA-compliant, IRB-waived study was performed from October 2019 to June 2021. Patients completed an optional 2-question survey (“How helpful was the report?” with a 5-star scale and an open text box) embedded into the patient portal, and reports were assessed for readability and brevity. Quantitative analyses were performed between poorly (≤3 stars) and highly rated (>3 stars) CT and MRI reports, including the use of structured reporting, number of words, words per sentence, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesh-Kincaid Grade level within the findings and impression sections of the radiology reports. A two-tailed nonparametric Mann U Whitney test was performed for continuous variables and Chi2 for categorical variables. Of the 490 responses, all 135 evaluating CT or MR were included (27%). 106/135 (78%) of the patients gave high ratings (score of 4 or 5). 46/135 (34%), the radiology reports were in a structured format. More highly rated reports were structured than poorly rated reports (93.5 vs. 6.5%, p = 0.002). In the findings section, highly rated reports had a lower Flesch Reading Ease score than poorly rated reports (19.6 vs. 28.9, p