Radiologist productivity in the U.S. has risen 70% in the past 15 years, driven in large measure by new technologies such as PACS.
That's the conclusion of a new article that we're featuring this week in our Imaging Center Digital Community by staff writer Kate Madden Yee. The story profiles a new study that looked at changes in radiologist productivity, finding that their growth in workload and productivity outstripped gains in the rest of the U.S. labor force.
The researchers attributed the increase to the fact that technologies such as PACS enable radiologists to do more work in the same number of hours. They also found that the growth in imaging performed outside of radiology isn't having a major impact on radiologists' workloads.
Get more details by clicking here, or visit the community at centers.auntminnie.com.
Cutting pediatric CT dose
In other news, we describe how researchers from Duke University in Durham, NC, reduced pediatric CT dose in chest imaging by 75%, according to an article by staff writer Cynthia E. Keen in our Pediatric Imaging Digital Community.
The researchers simulated CT studies performed at three different levels of reduced tube current (mAs), and then had a panel of three radiologists interpret the images to see if their diagnostic accuracy changed. They found that accuracy declined only slightly at the lower dose levels.
Find out more -- and learn about the unique method they used to simulate low-dose exams without scanning children multiple times -- by clicking here, or visit the community at pediatric.auntminnie.com.
