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

• Published in: Journal of the American College of Radiology Vol. 17; no. 7; pp. 865 - 872
• Main Authors: Naidich, Jason J., Boltyenkov, Artem, Wang, Jason J., Chusid, Jesse, Hughes, Danny, Sanelli, Pina C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.07.2020; American College of Radiology
• Subjects: Betacoronavirus; Coronavirus Infections - economics; COVID-19; Emergency Service, Hospital - economics; Humans; imaging volume; modality types; New York City; Pandemics - economics; patient service locations; Pneumonia, Viral - economics; Radiology Department, Hospital - economics; Retrospective Studies; SARS-CoV-2; Workload; New York City; COVID-19; patient service locations; modality types; imaging volume
• ISSN: 1546-1440; 1558-349X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacr.2020.05.004

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. 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. 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%). 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.