Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Aug 28, 2022; 14(8): 293-310
Published online Aug 28, 2022. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v14.i8.293
Imaging volumes during COVID-19: A Victorian health service experience
Jo-Anne Pinson, My Linh Diep, Vinay Krishnan, Caroline Aird, Cassie Cooper, Christopher Leong, Jeff Chen, Nicholas Ardley, Eldho Paul, Mohamed Khaldoun Badawy
Jo-Anne Pinson, My Linh Diep, Vinay Krishnan, Caroline Aird, Cassie Cooper, Christopher Leong, Jeff Chen, Nicholas Ardley, Mohamed Khaldoun Badawy, Monash Health Imaging, Monash Health, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia
Jo-Anne Pinson, Department of Medical Imaging, Peninsula Health, Melbourne, Victoria 3099, Australia
Jo-Anne Pinson, Mohamed Khaldoun Badawy, Department of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, School of Allied Health Care, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia
Eldho Paul, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia
Author contributions: Pinson JA, Badawy MK, designed and coordinated the study; Pinson JA, Badawy MK, Diep ML, Krishnan V, Aird C, Cooper C, Leong C, Chen J, Paul E and Ardley N performed the data collection, analysed and interpreted the data; Pinson JA, Badawy MK, Diep ML, Krishnan V, Aird C, Cooper C, Leong C, Chen J, Paul E and Ardley N wrote the manuscript; all authors have read, edited and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Monash Health Human Research Ethics Committee Institutional Review Board [(Approval No. QA/69362/MonH-2020-235260(v1))].
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent. For full disclosure, the details of the study are published on the home page of Fukushima Medical University.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We have no financial relationships to disclose.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at mohamed.badawy@monashhealth.org.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mohamed Khaldoun Badawy, BSc, MSc, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Senior Scientist, Monash Health Imaging, Monash Health, 246 Clayton Road, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia. mohamed.badawy@monashhealth.org
Received: March 16, 2022
Peer-review started: March 16, 2022
First decision: June 16, 2022
Revised: July 7, 2022
Accepted: July 20, 2022
Article in press: July 20, 2022
Published online: August 28, 2022
Processing time: 163 Days and 3.8 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic on March 11, 2020. While globally, the relative caseload has been high, Australia’s has been relatively low. During the pandemic, radiology services have seen significant changes in workflow across modalities and a reduction in imaging volumes.

AIM

To investigate differences in modality imaging volumes during the COVID-19 pandemic across a large Victorian public health network.

METHODS

A retrospective analysis from January 2019 to December 2020 compared imaging volumes across two periods corresponding to the pandemic’s first and second waves. Weekly volumes across patient class, modality and mobile imaging were summed for periods: wave 1 (weeks 11 to 16 for 2019; weeks 63 to 68 for 2020) and wave 2 (weeks 28 to 43 for 2019; weeks 80 to 95 for 2020). Microsoft Power Business Intelligence linked to the radiology information system was used to mine all completed examinations.

RESULTS

Summed weekly data during the pandemic’s first wave showed the greatest decrease of 29.8% in adult outpatient imaging volumes and 46.3% in paediatric emergency department imaging volumes. Adult nuclear medicine demonstrated the greatest decrease of 37.1% for the same period. Paediatric nuclear medicine showed the greatest decrease of 47.8%, with angiography increasing by 50%. The pandemic’s second wave demonstrated the greatest decrease of 23.5% in adult outpatient imaging volumes, with an increase of 18.2% in inpatient imaging volumes. The greatest decrease was 28.5% in paediatric emergency department imaging volumes. Nuclear medicine showed the greatest decrease of 37.1% for the same period. Paediatric nuclear medicine showed the greatest decrease of 36.7%. Mobile imaging utilisation increased between 57.8% and 135.1% during the first and second waves. A strong correlation was observed between mobile and non-mobile imaging in the emergency setting (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = -0.743, P = 0.000). No correlation was observed in the inpatient setting (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = -0.059, P = 0.554).

CONCLUSION

Nuclear medicine was most impacted, while computed tomography and angiography were the least affected by the pandemic. The impact was less during the pandemic’s second wave. Mobile imaging shows continuous growth during both waves.

Keywords: COVID-19; Pandemic; Radiology; Imaging volume; Modality; Mobile imaging

Core Tip: Analysis of weekly imaging modality volumes provides an overview of changes in service demand over time. We describe the changes in imaging modality and mobile imaging volumes during Victoria’s first and second waves of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.