Insight
Getting Your Reads Back, Part 1 of 3
We Can't Get Our Reads Back
Marc Alan Besinaiz, Principal, Medical Imaging Practice
"We can't get our reads back."
Over the last 12 months, I've heard that sentence from more and more hospital and imaging center leaders.
Not "we'd like faster reads." They can't get them.
The STAT CT sits in the queue. The ED calls radiology again. The patient waits.
Is this more of a perception or feeling? A 2026 study in the Journal of the American College of Radiology found outpatient CT turnaround times rose 318% from 2014 to 2023.
Those are the routine reads, the ones that should be easy.
If this sounds like your facility, you're not alone.