Abstract
An x-ray report writer was crafted for a radiologist serving eight widely spread rural hospitals and clinics. Transcribed reports, originally taking one to seven days to turn out, are now code-generated on a portable computer. Its software translates the code into full text interpretations, forwards this data by moden to remote teletypewriters, and makes printouts available to doctors within minutes. Costing under $10,000, the system is saving secretarial salaries, doubling film utilization, and capturing billings routinely lost by old manual techniques. Code typing adds only 1.2 minutes work time to each case. If one is to save effort and money in x-ray with computer techniques, then those techniques must respond within the iron constraints of how radiologists do radiology. This paper reviews classic x-ray work methods, describes the generation of typed film reports with a portable, stand-alone computer, and then analyses its effects.