The Neurosurgical Service has approached Radiology about adding a 3 tesla MRI scanner.
Situation: The Neurosurgical Service has approached Radiology about adding a 3 tesla MRI scanner. Neurosurgery believes that this service will enhance the provision of care to patients and will also allow the facility to recruit more patients. If the patient volume does increase then Radiology would also benefit through increased revenue. These 2 services have requested that hospital administration purchase and install the scanner. Your administrator has asked you as the director of radiology to access the feasibility and develop a pro forma.
One of the most difficult parts of the assessment is the determination of need or customer demand. The clinical services wanting the new equipment know that the technology is superior to what the hospital currently has but you have to determine what the actual usage of the equipment might be. Some ways to assess this include:
Assess internal demand – If the new equipment will be providing exams that current equipment provide (in addition to new exams) then you must ascertain how well demand is being met. For example, if the next available appointment is several weeks out, then there is a possibility that patients may not be willing to wait and choose to have the exam performed elsewhere. Data such as cancellations is useful in evaluating this aspect.
Internal demand for new procedure – In this case neurosurgery will use the new scanner for imaging associated with new procedures but what is the demand. You will need to talk to the services that would be referring patients to determine if the demand actually exists. For example, are these services referring their patients to other facilities to have these procedures performed?
Lost opportunities in general – Although a particular service is requesting the equipment are there other opportunities. For example, you might learn that another service is referring patients outside of the facility for MR imaging due to quality, appointment availability, etc.
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