Increased report completeness and satisfaction with structured neurotological reporting in the interdisciplinary assessment of vertigo

Abstract

Results of neurotological function diagnostics in the context of interdisciplinary vertigo assessment are usually formulated as free-text reports (FTR). These are often subject to high variability, which may lead to loss of information. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the completeness of structured reports (SR) and referrer satisfaction in the neurotological assessment of vertigo. Neurotological function diagnostics performed as referrals (n = 88) were evaluated retrospectively. On the basis of the available raw data, SRs corresponding to FTRs from clinical routine were created by means of aspecific SR template for neurotological function diagnostics. FTRs and SRs were evaluated for completeness and referring physician satisfaction (n = 8) using avisual analog scale (VAS) questionnaire. Compared to FTRs, SRs showed significantly increased overall completeness (73.7% vs. 51.7%, p < 0.001), especially in terms of patient history (92.5% vs. 66.7%, p < 0.001), description of previous findings (87.5% vs. 38%, p < 0.001), and neurotological (33.5% vs. 26.7%, p < 0.001) and audiometric function diagnostics (58% vs. 32.3%, p < 0.001). In addition, SR showed significantly increased referring physician satisfaction (VAS 8.8vs. 4.9, p < 0.001). Neurotological SRs enable asignificantly increased report completeness with higher referrer satisfaction in the context of interdisciplinary assessment of vertigo. Furthermore, SRs are particularly suitable for scientific data analysis, especially in the context of big data analyses.