What is 'analytics'?

An analytic tool, broadly speaking, creates a clear profile of certain aspects of an organization. A common use of analytic tools is to direct decision-making through statistical analysis and visual presentation of otherwise unwieldy, massive data.

What's unique about Capricorn?

Capricorn is designed for radiology residents and by radiology residents. Business analytics solutions in radiology (e.g. Montage) makes 'improving your radiology practice' their mission. To the extent that the goals of improving the business of radiology differ from the goals of improving radiology education, Capricorn offers uniquely training-focused analytics.

It also doesn't hurt that Capricorn is free.

What is Capricorn?

Capricorn is a radiology residency analytics tool as part of a project at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, department of radiology. The main software engineer is Howard Chen, MD, MBA, with help of Yin Jie Chen, MD under the mentorship of Tessa Cook, MD, PhD.

What does Capricorn do?

Residents are frequently advised, "The more you see, the more you learn." Unfortunately, with the multitudes of study types that a radiology resident must learn, it is easy to lose track of one's strengths and weaknesses in training.

Formal ACGME, ABR, ACCF/AHA (among others) clinical competency minimum numbers exist for diagnostic radiology trainees.

Capricorn has three main functions.

  • Keep an automatic case log using radiology information system.
  • Track attending changes between preliminary and final reports.
  • Analyze attending changes to provide qualitative and quantitative performance feedback to residents.

    • How does Capricorn work?

    Capricorn takes existing data on radiology information system and recompiles it into a resident-focused database. It contains a scorecard which allows residents to view their training since beginning of residency or down to a single week. Capricorn then uses statistical analysis to compare residents' performance with institutional historical data or with requirements set by professional organizations.

    How do I get Capricorn installed?

    Our team is a group of educationally-minded radiologists and not a for-profit company. We are happy to provide help in consultation capacity, but the following is required for a residency program to install Capricorn:

    • Web server (Apache) with PHP 5.4+ and MySQL support.
    • Read access to the radiology information system (RIS) database.
    • Technical expertise. (see below)

    Technical Expertise

    This section describes the "big picture" view of getting Capricorn running.

    Capricorn analyzes the RIS and stores relevant data into its own MySQL database. A working installation requires a script that performs this process. An existing script in the download package contains one that works for GE-RIS and can serve as an example. A programmer is likely necessary to write a script connecting your RIS to the Capricorn database.

    Additional work is likely necessary to manually categorize each institution's unique examination codes into clinical categories. For instance, unenhanced, routine enhanced, CTU, adrenal protocol, renal mass protocol, liver protocol, etc., are all considered CT of abdomen/pelvis by ACGME minimum numbers, but each institution may have one or more code for each of the aforementioned protocols.

    A RIS/PACS support staff from your site and/or a programmer may need to map your exam codes to more educationally relevant categories without losing the granular details.

    Capricorn can be optionally connected to your scheduling software to automatically identify your residents' rotations, which allows it to analyze resident volume by rotation. The downloadble code package contains example code for adapting QGenda, and your IT staff will likely need to modify it to suit your particular scheduler software. Alternatively, rotation dates for each resident may be entered into the database manually. A third option is to forego rotation support - Capricorn will provide default views for preset timeframes (i.e. 1 month), and the user can manually change the date range as appropriate.

    As an open-source project, Capricorn code can be freely modified to fit your residency needs without worrying about any red tape.

    Technical installation details are available on our GitHub page. See Download.