Image courtesy of Philips
November 30, 2015 — National Decision Support Company (NDSC) revealed that ordering providers now access the company’s flagship solution, ACR Select, more than 1 million times per month—all from within their electronic health record (EHR) order entry workflow. ACR Select provides real-time feedback on the most appropriate imaging test for a patient’s condition and has been implemented at over 100 healthcare systems nationally, representing over 800 individual facilities.
According to Justin Chang, M.D., vice president, resource stewardship, hospital service and contracting, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colorado, “By leveraging the 3,000 search-enabled clinical indications contained within ACR Select, ordering providers are able to correctly match over 90 percent of their medical imaging orders to clinical indications contained within ACR Select within their first month of clinical use.”
With the recently announced update to the American College of Radiology’s (ACR) Appropriateness Criteria, ACR Select now covers over 15,000 clinical end points in addition to the more than 3,000 clinical scenarios. According to NDSC CEO Michael Mardini, the database covers nearly 1,000 individual Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes representing 27 medical specialty societies.
The utility of ACR Select assumes even more significance now that clients are living in an ICD-10 world. “Accurately capturing a structured reason for the exam at the point of encounter will ensure we can accurately protocol and interpret the exam," said Colin Segovis, M.D., radiologist, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
In addition to reaching a new adoption milestone, the company is installing its first site in Vermont. “The fact that Epic was completely behind our adoption of ACR Select was a big plus for us in our decision to choose ACR Select,” said Kristen DeStigter, M.D., interim chair, Department of Radiology, University of Vermont Medical Center. “Decision support has huge potential for us and at the state level, we’re already piloting prior authorization exemptions for spine MRI [magnetic resnonance imaging].” The experience in Vermont has proven that by streamlining the ordering process, and using the ACR Appropriateness Criteria as a guidepost, provider organizations can improve the physician and patient experience. “Leveraging ACR Select, we’ll be able to extend our imaging stewardship across all care settings and modalities through EHR-integrated decision support and extend the reach of our accountable care organization to cover imaging,” said DeStigter.
NDSC will be demonstrating its latest developments, including integrations with leading EHRs, at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2015 annual meeting, Nov. 29 – Dec. 3 in Chicago.
For more information: www.acrselect.org
June 12, 2025 
