The announcement made by several states to ease COVID-19 restrictions last week was met with mixed feelings, to say the least. Amidst the reactions, there is a hope shared by imaging center and imaging department leaders that this will mark the beginning of a return to “normal” imaging volumes.
The majority of the industry anticipates that even after their respective states “re-open,” it will take 2-3 months for volumes to return “normal” levels. The IMV, the imaging market research division of Science and Medicine Group, released its initial findings in an ongoing, industry-wide survey last week in a webinar titled, “COVID-19 Business Impact on Medical Imaging.”
Shared with permission from IMV. Full Webinar and Slide Deck.
As part of the study, 619 medical imaging respondents throughout the US and Europe reported how long they “[anticipated] it will take [their] departments to ramp back up to previous volume levels.” The majority of respondents (58% – US, 51% – Europe) answered that volumes would return within 2-3 months, but several still felt that it would take six months or more (11% – US, 13% – Europe).
It’s to be expected that not every patient will be anxious to jump right back into their normal lives. For almost three months, national and local news has been reporting little else besides the pandemic. Most of your patients have been following various versions of shelter in place rules for at least two months. Even if fear played no part in their decisions, the effort it takes to start up their whole lives again would make it a drawn-out process. A visit to the doctor’s office is just not high on everyone’s priority list.
It will take a concerted effort and proactive action on your office’s part to refill those appointment books.
In the meantime, make sure you are taking the opportunity to evaluate your workflow and make any operational improvements you’ve been meaning to make before traffic ramps up. If you would like a professional 2nd opinion for free, let medQ walk you through their zero-based, detailed Imaging Workflow Review. Recently, we saved an imaging center 15,600 man-hours a year. Will your imaging team be next? Schedule your professional review, here.
To view the entire webinar for yourself or download the slides, visit our friends at IMV, here.
If you would like to subscribe to their ongoing study findings, visit: https://imvinfo.com/product/covid-19-imaging-facility-tracker/
