INSIGHTS
WHAT NEXT? DIRECTOR’S CUT BY BETH ALLEN
I
t is not unusual for jobs in health care to bring one challenge after another. You never know what to expect. It is what keeps me interested and never bored. I know that I learn something new every day because some crazy situation comes up that we have not had happen before. We may need to create a new workflow or find a different way to achieve the same results.
tential crisis before we were officially told. This community of medical imaging professionals is always looking out for each other. I appreciate the information that I learn there and am always shocked that people are discussing exactly what is going on in my “neighborhood.” We are all facing the same challenges and I love the opportunity to see how others are finding creative solutions. We began to construct a contingency plan, but I was not anxious. We ordered what we could and had a decent stock on hand. We were a little ahead of the game and I was optimistic that this would be resolved quickly. I will admit that it did get a little scary for a minute. We put together system level meetings. Although the Banner acute care facilities use another product for CT, they were also put on an allocation by the supplier to limit what they were able to order. We would not just be able to replace the Omnipaque with another product. We created a plan of action that included tier levels based on our days on hand, which was reported by each of our outpatient sites. This was essentially a guess as to how much contrast we used each day. This fluctuates based on what is scheduled. As this situation went on, we wanted to be more precise than that. We created a calculation based
“It is nice to know that the imaging world is small, and we are in it together.”
COVID-19 is the gift that keeps on giving. We have spent the last month working through the latest challenges caused by the pandemic. Due to an outbreak that caused a factory across the world to shut down, we were left in a predicament. Since Banner Imaging uses the GE Omnipaque product for CT and fluoroscopy, we needed to come up with a game plan that would conserve our supply but also not diminish the quality of our exams. Contrast is imperative to the diagnosis of many conditions and the status of cancer progression. How were we going to manage this situation? Fortunately, I regularly review the AHRA forum, so we learned of this po-
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ICEMAGAZINE | AUGUST 2022
ADVANCING THE IMAGING PROFESSIONAL
