[riahi]

Sometimes we have the clinical context, usually if practicing in a large hospital system with an integrated EMR. It's not usually so neatly summarized though; maybe if we are lucky we can quickly glance through relevant notes at the time of scan interpretation.

However, healthcare in the US is very fragmented. Many patients seek cheaper imaging at freestanding imaging centers. Those places often don't have the same HIT integrations to have similar medical context.

And in those settings, I only know what's on the images and maybe 200-300 characters on the "reason for study" box.

This is not to say I think everyone should get scanned at expensive sites; more an indictment on how annoying the current EMR situation is.