Protocol design and optimization.

INTRODUCTION Ultimately, all medical care should be designed and then delivered with the goal of improving patient outcomes and experience. What constitutes a positive encounter will vary from one patient to another (eg, pain relief in terminal cancer vs curative resection in operable oncologic disease), so care pathways should be tailored to address individual patients’ needs. This tenet holds as true for imaging as for any other specialty. In this series, we have argued that delivering better patient care can be achieved through an understanding of the imaging value chain. This begins when an imaging examination is requested and ends when actionable information is delivered to caregivers in a timely manner. This longitudinal perspective promotes the opportunity to evaluate and improve each link in the value chain to optimize imaging’s contribution to better care. In a previous article, we addressed the first link in this chain: imaging appropriateness, scheduling, and patient preparation. In this article, we address the next link: imaging protocol design and optimization.