Imaging staff are accustomed to working under high levels of stress. With a global health crisis now adding to that stress, how can today’s CT departments maintain high levels of performance and support the entire team?
Empower your CT technologist team and set up your department for success by looking at four key areas to help you increase workforce productivity and optimize clinical operations. Click the chapters below to learn more.
4 Priorities Guiding Successful CT Departments
Advance the performance of your CT technologist team by asking yourself these key questions
What’s our strategy for long-term protocol management?
In a busy CT department, the sheer number of protocols can be overwhelming. This is particularly true with today’s more modern CT scanners, which often have advanced features to help reduce radiation dose, speed data acquisition, and/or improve image quality.
What’s more, protocols for the same body region may vary between different scanners from the same manufacturer.
Manually reconstructing parameters may actually alter the default. Routinely checking the protocols can help you catch or prevent these errors. Reducing CT protocol errors will reduce unwarranted variations by ensuring the use of correct radiation doses and producing high quality images. Given the sheer number of protocols, it may be helpful to review protocols (or sections of protocols) on a frequent schedule for maximum benefit.
How is our exam mix changing?
As the complexity of CT exams increases, some organizations may not have the technology to help technologists perform these exams, or have the technology but may not be leveraging it to its full potential.
The truth is: technology alone is often not enough. Technologists – whether they have been practicing for two years or 20 – must be confident in using the technology available so that your department is leveraging the important clinical data they are capturing and getting the full return on the investment made in your CT technology.
How often are we tailoring exams to patient needs?
A CT technologist’s day could begin with an 84-year-old man with a broken femur, and comorbidities including a hip implant, which may impact how the patient’s scan should be set up. Or your department may see a pediatric patient with an irregular heart rhythm who needs a CT for pre-surgical planning.
Every patient who walks in the door has their own diverse set of dynamics, all of which may require individualized scan parameters. Within any exam protocol, the correct scan parameters must also be set for consistent, high-quality images.
Can all our technologists confidently position patients regardless of exam type?
The rise in exam complexity may also mean an increased reliance on precise patient positioning, which is not always simple or straightforward.
For cardiac CT scans, for example, positioning the patient, specifically the correct positioning of the heart, is key. If the heart is not in the isocenter of the gantry, the image quality can be compromised, which can result in re-scans.
For these and many other exam types, precise patient preparation is essential to obtaining high-quality diagnostic imaging.
