Informatics Structured Content

$nameACR Assist is a clinical decision support framework designed to provide structured clinical guidance to radiologists in a manner that allows this content to be incorporated naturally into the radiology workflow. The ACR Assist framework includes raw clinical content, an encoding scheme that allows this content to be consumed by commercial applications, and a communication framework that facilitates content delivery.

Download ACR Assist Schema

The core clinical components that comprise ACR Assist include:

  • Structured classification and reporting taxonomies in the form of the ACR “RADS” such as BI-RADS, LI-RADS and PI-RADS
  • Care pathways/algorithms such as those found in the “Incedentaloma” white papers
  • Classification and communication needs for actionable findings
The goal of ACR Assist is to provide this content in a structured, vendor-neutral manner that allows reporting vendors, in particular, to provide guidance during interpretation at the time this information is most useful to the radiologist.

Is ACR Assist a packaged product that I can buy from the ACR?

No. ACR Assist is a collection of structured content that will be provided to the practicing radiologist through reporting vendors.

Will ACR Assist replace existing structured reporting initiatives (e.g., RSNA structured reporting templates)?

No. The goal is to replace the highly variable, unstructured narrative report. ACR Assist is designed to provide real-time clinical decision support with the ability to incorporate the modular structured content into a conventional narrative report.

Should a site adopt the RSNA structured reporting templates as a standard, ACR Assist content objects can be delivered where appropriate within that reporting template just as they are within a conventional narrative report.

How will ACR Assist be provided to the practicing radiologist and does it replace current narrative-centric reporting methods that are typically used?

ACR Assist is designed to augment the current narrative-centric method of reporting, not replace it. Reporting vendors will be able to incorporate ACR Assist clinical guidance objects into the reporting process and utilize natural language processing to determine when to provide the interpreting radiologist with a particular content object in the form of decision support. The goal is to provide this information as assistance within the conventional reporting process (e.g., the ability to select from one of the BIRADS classification codes) rather than replace it.

Additionally, the results of this CDS process can include incorporating structured information directly into the report as well as communicating results to downstream systems, where appropriate and desired.

Additional Resources

Standard Terminology
Communication Services
Clinical Decision Support