Gain access to the European Society of Radiology’s guidance for appropriate imaging

Launched at the European Congress of Radiology 2018, the stand-alone ESR iGuide portal grants access to the European Society of Radiology’s imaging referral guidelines. The guidelines are based on the American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria through two user-friendly workflow options. Learn more about how to use the portal.


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Consult the ESR’s guidance for appropriate imaging by signing up for free individual user access or log in using an existing account.

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ESR iGuide is a clinical decision support system for European imaging referral guidelines developed by the European Society of Radiology (ESR) in cooperation with the American College of Radiology (ACR).

Efficiently managing medical imaging utilisation has become essential in an environment of ever increasing demands on healthcare services in general, and radiology departments in particular. Following an evidence-based approach to providing healthcare, ESR iGuide enables providers to Maintain patient safety and improve quality of service by ensuring that imaging is used appropriately and unnecessary exams are avoided.

The ESR’s affiliate Quality and Safety in Imaging (QSI) GmbH is the exclusive distributor of the ESR's referral guidelines through ESR iGuide, delivering actionable CDS based on evidence-based appropriate use criteria directly into clinical workflows at the point of care. ESR iGuide leverages the market-leading decision support mechanism.


Features and benefits

Founded on guidelines developed over past 25 years

ESR iGuide is founded on guidelines that have been developed over the past 25 years by the American College of Radiology, leveraging the experience of thousands of volunteer physicians working on 12 expert panels grading nearly 6,500 peer-reviewed published articles. ACR Select covers over 1,000 individual imaging CPT codes and contains over 15,000 individual Appropriate Use Criteria covering all of medical imaging and has been adapted by a committee of European experts covering every specialty of radiology for in ESR iGuide in Europe.

Based on feedback from thousands of providers

The content in ESR iGuide includes feedback from the thousands of providers who interact with and localise the guidelines. This user feedback is rigorously reviewed by the ESR expert panels and incorporated into ESR iGuide, balancing the rigour of the publishing process with delivery at the speed of information technology to ensure a vibrant set of evidence-based imaging referral guidelines that fits with the requirements of healthcare professionals.

Over 3,000 search-enabled clinical scenarios mapped to ICD-10

Over 3,000 search-enabled clinical scenarios mapped to ICD-10 cover the universe of plausible reasons for imaging exams. Enabling sites to code the ICD 10 order diagnosis, at the time the request is placed with the EHR. ESR iGuide helps reduce retrospective analysis and coding errors and ensures that all medical imaging requests are correctly coded and placed.

Eliminate up to 15 percent of imaging volume, reduce change requests by up to 50 percent

Delivering actionable guidelines to requesting physicians, the ACR criteria have been proven to eliminate up to 15 percent of imaging volume and reduced the number of changed requests after the initial referral by 50 percent. ESR iGuide brings these benefits to the European market and is integrated with major EHR systems for seamless delivery of actionable appropriateness feedback in the clinical workflow.

Complete analytics and reporting capabilities

Complete analytics, integrated with the EHR data set, provide specific reporting capabilities to enable provider benchmarking and continuous improvement based on clinical area, line of service and provider. ESR iGuide embeds all decision support data into the EHR to enable Clinical Quality Metrics.

Actionable criteria delivered natively in EHR workflow

Actionable criteria delivered natively in EHR workflows and other physician access points. Providers interact with the imaging referral guidelines in their native, EHR-based workflows. Configurable guidance informs providers only when a selected test does not conform to guidelines. Providers can select the suggested alternate pathway directly from within their EHR user interface. The source evidence is always available, allowing the referring provider to reference the source criteria for complex patient conditions and continuous learning.

Localisation capabilities

Complete localisation capabilities allow sites to author and publish their own criteria derived from the extensive content in ESR iGuide to match local care protocols or requirements. For the introduction in European markets, ESR iGuide is translated into the local language.

Guidelines accessible from any web browser

The ESR iGuide Portal provides access to the full functionality of ESR iGuide within any web browser, allowing providers without EHR access to interact with the guidelines, comply with requirements to consult with guidelines and avoid the overhead of manual prior authorisations.

Trusted partner

QSI is trusted by EHR vendors to deliver credible, standard content into provider workflows. We work closely with EHR vendors to integrate its market-leading CDS platform with EHR systems to ensure that the guidelines are delivered into the workflow in a non-disruptive manner within the native EHR user interface.