Reviewing and acting on diagnostic reports is a professional obligation.1 This includes X-ray of the chest (CXR) reports which recommend follow-up imaging and only become available after the patient has been discharged. Emergency departments (EDs) are required to have safe systems in place to manage radiology reports.2 It is not known how many repeat CXRs are indicated or if repeat CXRs yield clinically significant findings. This study sought to determine how often a follow-up CXR altered patient management.

This single-centre study took place in an ED with approximately 53 000 annual presentations. All CXRs are reviewed for acute findings and actioned during the ED visit by the attending emergency medicine clinicians. Radiology reports typically only become available after the patient has been discharged. Previously, our ED forwarded these reports to the patient’s general practitioner (GP). The local GP committee raised concerns that patients would not necessarily follow-up with their GP. To mitigate this risk, in 2019, our ED introduced a new process (see online supplemental figure 1). Emergency physicians ordered an …