The purpose of this commentary was to outline several key considerations and challenges for medical imaging departments during a global pandemic. Five public hospital medical imaging departments were identified in South‐East Queensland, Australia, to provide insight into their response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Common themes were identified, with the four considered most pertinent documented in this commentary. Similar operational considerations and challenges were identified amongst all sites. This commentary intends to serve as a starting point for medical imaging departments in considering the planning and implementation of services in a pandemic scenario.

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BackgroundRadiographic examinations of the ankle are important in the clinical management of ankle injuries in hospital emergency departments. National (Australian) Emergency Access Targets (NEAT) stipulate that 90 percent of presentations should leave the emergency department within 4 hours. For a radiological report to have clinical usefulness and relevance to clinical teams treating patients with ankle injuries in emergency departments, the report would need to be prepared and available to the clinical team within the NEAT 4 hour timeframe; before the patient has left the emergency department. However, little is known about the demand profile of ankle injuries requiring radiographic examination or time until radiological reports are available for this clinical group in Australian public hospital emergency settings.MethodsThis study utilised a prospective cohort of consecutive cases of ankle examinations from patients (n = 437) with suspected traumatic ankle injuries presenting to the emergency department of a tertiary hospital facility. Time stamps from the hospital Picture Archiving and Communication System were used to record the timing of three processing milestones for each patient’s radiographic examination; the time of image acquisition, time of a provisional radiological report being made available for viewing by referring clinical teams, and time of final verification of radiological report.ResultsRadiological reports and all three time stamps were available for 431 (98.6%) cases and were included in analysis. The total time between image acquisition and final radiological report verification exceeded 4 hours for 404 (92.5%) cases. The peak demand for radiographic examination of ankles was on weekend days, and in the afternoon and evening. The majority of examinations were provisionally reported and verified during weekday daytime shift hours.ConclusionsProvisional or final radiological reports were frequently not available within 4 hours of image acquisition among this sample. Effective and cost-efficient strategies to improve the support provided to referring clinical teams from medical imaging departments may enhance emergency care interventions for people presenting to emergency departments with ankle injuries; particularly those with imaging findings that may be challenging for junior clinical staff to interpret without a definitive radiological report.

Introduction The purpose of this randomised controlled trial was to compare the effectiveness of intensive and non‐intensive formats of delivery of image interpretation education for radiographers. Methods A multi‐centre, stratified (by years of experience) two group parallel arm, single blind, randomised controlled trial was conducted. Participants (n = 48) were allocated to one of two groups to receive image interpretation education: (1) intensive format (13.5 h over two consecutive days) (2) non‐intensive (sequential 90‐min tutorials delivered 1 week apart). Participants undertook x‐ray interpretation tests before education, at 1‐week post‐education completion and at 12‐week post‐education completion. Results Image interpretation performance was not significantly different between groups at baseline. A generalised linear model indicated that participants who received intensive education format improved image interpretation performance by a greater margin than the group that received non‐intensive education at 1‐week (P = 0.002) and 12‐week (P < 0.001) follow‐up assessments. Conclusions Although both formats of education delivery may be beneficial, the findings of this study have indicated that the intensive format of delivery was more effective at improving radiographers’ ability to interpret trauma radiographs in the weeks after completion of the image interpretation program.