Image Gently: providing practical educational tools and advocacy to accelerate radiation protection for children worldwide.

The Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging is an organization of over 45 international professional societies and agencies with the goal of promoting radiation safety for children. The Alliance, through the Image Gently campaign, uses social marketing techniques and critical partnerships with vendors, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations, to advocate best practices in radiation use and safety. Advocacies include improving education regarding radiation risk to patients from medical imaging for radiologists, technologists, and referring physicians; promoting standardization of dose measurements and display across vendor equipment; and improving medical literacy for parents.

SCAR Radiologic Technologist Survey: analysis of technologist workforce and staffing.

One of the greatest dilemmas facing medical imaging departments today is the worsening personnel crisis in the radiologic technologist (RT) workforce. As the volume and complexity of medical imaging studies continues to increase, an unprecedented imbalance exists between RT supply and demand. A number of etiologic factors have been postulated to contribute to this RT shortage including decreasing morale, perceived inadequacies in compensation, decreasing number of training programs, and limitations in the career ladder. Previous studies have cited improved technologist productivity as imaging departments successfully transition from film-based to filmless operation. This study was undertaken to address the impact of digital technologies (information systems, PACS, digital radiography) on technologist productivity, in an attempt to determine whether these technologies can be used to positively affect the existing RT workforce imbalance. A total of 112 facilities participated in this nationwide study, with representation of imaging providers that paralleled the demographic profile of the marketplace as a whole. Survey results indicate the existing RT staffing shortage is greatest within academic and rural-based hospitals and is most severe in the area of general radiography, which accounts for 65-70% of imaging department volumes. For general radiography alone, respondents report an average shortage of 2 RT full-time equivalents (FTE's) per institution, when comparing the number of budgeted RT FTE's versus the actual number of RT FTE's. Preliminary results indicate that at this time, RT staffing shortages are not affected by the presence or absence of digital information technologies. Additional research is planned through a five-year longitudinal data collection, to better delineate the complex relationship that exists between implementation of digital technologies and RT staffing.

Resolving the technologist shortage: a summary of ACR and ASRT efforts to meet the increasing demand for RTs.

Demand for radiologic technologists in the United States greatly outstripped supply throughout the late 1990s and peaked in 2000, when vacancy rates for radiologic technologists reached an average of 18% nationwide. To combat the shortage, the ACR and the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) launched a series of aggressive recruitment and retention initiatives designed to boost the number of technologists. The campaigns have resulted in rising enrollments in educational programs, greater numbers of graduates and new technologists, and the expansion of the career ladder. As a result, the national vacancy rate for radiologic technologists had dropped to 12% by the end of 2003. This article reviews the radiologic technologists personnel shortage at the turn of the century, describes efforts taken by the ACR and the ASRT to ameliorate the shortage, and examines the future of the radiologic technology workforce.