Delivering portable chest radiography through a glass barrier during the pandemic helped one Toronto hospital save tens of thousands of dollars, experts reported recently.
Such mobile X-ray units have become popular over the past year as radiology departments look to keep patients in place and limit transmission of the virus. Typically, bedside imaging requires a team of two technologists, University of Toronto experts wrote in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences. But scientists with the affiliated St. Michael’s Hospital’s designed a new approach.
Dubbed portable chest radiography through glass or TG-CXR, the novel technique lets one tech stay outside the patient room while operating the machine. This has allowed St. Michael’s to reduce the use of personal protective equipment, decrease radiography machine sanitization, and limit staffers’ exposure to the virus.
Adopting TG-CXR involved a small one-time cost of $424.88 for training. But researchers estimate the hospital saved about $9.87 per radiograph and nearly $51,452 (USD) over the course of a year
“Healthcare workers are a scarce resource and keeping them safe is critical to ensure that there is adequate staffing to provide patient care,” first author Tian Yang Liu, MD, with the St. Michael’s department of radiology, and colleagues wrote April 7. “The TG-CXR technique decreases the number of staff exposed to [persons under investigation]/COVID positive patients which results in decreased risk of transmission which provides an important advantage during our fight against the current pandemic.”
The analysis is limited by its small sample size (316 exams) and single-center nature, with costs likely varying at other institution. Still, Liu and colleagues believe their calculations present a sound opportunity for cost savings at other institutions.
You can read more about their work in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences here.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.