Short-, Mid-, and Long-term Strategies to Manage the Shortage of Iohexol.

The recent iohexol shortage has precipitated disruptions in a pharmaceutical supply chain critical to radiologic imaging and has impacted global availability of iodinated contrast media (ICM). The shortage has created a national crisis in radiology departments, curtailing their ability to provide health care to patients who need contrast-enhanced examinations. Radiology departments are familiar with crisis management after more than 2 years of clinical and operational disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The iohexol and subsequent ICM shortage has short-term (weeks), midterm (months), and long-term (years) implications. The purpose of this report is to provide strategies for dealing with the shortage in the near term and to discuss long-term issues and potential solutions to supply chain problems impacting radiology departments.

Physician Burnout in Radiology: Perspectives From the Field.

Physician burnout is increasingly recognized as a public health crisis given the impact of burnout on physicians, their families, patients, communities, and population health. The COVID-19 pandemic has superimposed a new set of challenges for physicians to navigate, including unique challenges presented to radiologists. Radiologists from a diversity of backgrounds, practice settings, and career stages were asked for their perspectives on burnout.

Enabling Your Radiology Business to Thrive Strategic Lessons Learned During the Initial and Subsequent Surges of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic surges of 2020 resulted in major operational, personal, and financial impacts on US radiology practices. In response, a series of strategic and intentional operational changes were implemented, varying by practice size, structure and model. In reviewing the many business lessons that we learned during the pandemic, it became clear that for a business to be successful, a host of additional supportive factors are necessary. In addition to timely expense reductions, optimizing revenue capture and close monitoring and management of cash and reserves available for use, we also consider effective leadership and communication strategies, maintenance of a healthy and adequately staffed team, support for a remote work environment and flexible staffing models. Other ingredients include effectively embracing digital media for communications, careful attention to current and new stakeholders and the service delivered to them, understanding federal and state regulatory changes issued in response to the pandemic, close collaboration with the Human Resources office, and an early focus on redesigning your future practice structure and function, including disaster and downtime planning. This review aims to share lessons to enable leaders of an imaging enterprise to be better prepared for similar and future surges.

The Early Influence and Effects of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic on Resident Education and Adaptations.

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a major impact on the education of trainees in the radiology environment. The precipitous drop in patient volumes and sequestering of faculty and trainees to maintain social distancing affects experiential learning. The shift of nearly all teaching settings to a virtual environment has been challenging but may also allow more interaction during teaching sessions than traditional readout sessions or didactic lectures. Faculty development is key in ensuring competence and confidence in this new environment. Recruitment of trainees using a virtual platform will require communication of opportunities as well as the culture of the department and institution as well as the community. Delay of the board examinations has caused angst as well as disruption of the timing of clinical rotations but may ultimately result in a shift of how the examinations are administered. The exceptional disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic allows us to reconsider how the educational aspects of imaging can emerge as improved in the years to come.