Radiology, Vol 145, 367-370, Copyright © 1982 by Radiological Society of North America
Computed tomographic studies of the head in a teaching hospital and a community hospital: a comparison
BJ McNeil, JR Kirkwood, JA Hanley, J Polak, R Wilkinson and HH Funkenstein
This investigation compared the use of computed tomography (CT) of the head
at a large primary medical-school-affiliated hospital and at a large
community hospital. There were two aims: first, to study the intrinsic
characteristics of the patients in an attempt to determine the potential
for developing accurate discrimination algorithms; and second, to study the
patterns of neurodiagnostic tests used at these facilities. The results
indicated that separability of patients into normal and abnormal categories
at both institutions was extremely small. In addition, there was no
significant difference in the numbers of types of ancillary tests used at
both institutions. Overall, these data once more confirm the difficulty of
altering CT usage patterns in primary or secondary hospitals without
significantly affecting the number of abnormal patients identified.
