Original Article
Impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic on Imaging Case Volumes

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacr.2020.05.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had significant economic impact on radiology with markedly decreased imaging case volumes. The purpose of this study was to quantify the imaging volumes during the COVID-19 pandemic across patient service locations and imaging modality types.

Methods

Imaging case volumes in a large health care system were retrospectively studied, analyzing weekly imaging volumes by patient service locations (emergency department, inpatient, outpatient) and modality types (x-ray, mammography, CT, MRI, ultrasound, interventional radiology, nuclear medicine) in years 2020 and 2019. The data set was split to compare pre-COVID-19 (weeks 1-9) and post-COVID-19 (weeks 10-16) periods. Independent-samples t tests compared the mean weekly volumes in 2020 and 2019.

Results

Total imaging volume in 2020 (weeks 1-16) declined by 12.29% (from 522,645 to 458,438) compared with 2019. Post-COVID-19 (weeks 10-16) revealed a greater decrease (28.10%) in imaging volumes across all patient service locations (range 13.60%-56.59%) and modality types (range 14.22%-58.42%). Total mean weekly volume in 2020 post-COVID-19 (24,383 [95% confidence interval 19,478-29,288]) was statistically reduced (P = .003) compared with 33,913 [95% confidence interval 33,429-34,396] in 2019 across all patient service locations and modality types. The greatest decline in 2020 was seen at week 16 specifically for outpatient imaging (88%) affecting all modality types: mammography (94%), nuclear medicine (85%), MRI (74%), ultrasound (64%), interventional (56%), CT (46%), and x-ray (22%).

Discussion

Because the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic remains uncertain, these results may assist in guiding short- and long-term practice decisions based on the magnitude of imaging volume decline across different patient service locations and specific imaging modality types.

Key Words

COVID-19
imaging volume
patient service locations
modality types

Cited by (0)

Dr Boltyenkov reports personal fees from Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc, outside the submitted work, and is a shareholder of Siemens Healthineers. Dr Hughes reports grants from Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute, outside the submitted work. Dr Sanelli reports grants from Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute, during the conduct of the study, and grants and nonfinancial support from Siemens Healthineers, Inc, outside the submitted work. The other authors state that they have no conflict of interest related to the material discussed in this article. All authors are nonpartnership track employees.

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