TITLE:
Economic Evaluation of Conventional Radiography with Film and Computed Radiography: Applied at BMC
AUTHORS:
Usama Ali Rahoma, Pavan Kumar Chundi
KEYWORDS:
Radiographic Film; X-Ray Radiography; Computed Radiography; Cost Benefit Analysis
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Computed Tomography,
Vol.1 No.3,
December
27,
2012
ABSTRACT:
Conventional radiography with film (CRF) has been in use for
diagnostic purposes for a long time now. It has proved to be a great assert for
the radiographers in assessing various abnormalities. With recent advances in
technology it is now possible to have digital solutions for radiography
problems at a very cost effective, environment friendly and also with better
image quality in certain applications when compared to CRF. Rather than using a
CRF a computed radiography (CR) uses imaging plates to capture the image. The
imaging plate contains photosensitive phosphors which contain the latent image.
Later this plate is introduced into a reader which is then converted into a
digital image. The major advantage and the cost effective element of this
system is the ability to reuse the imaging plates unlike the photographic film
where in only a single image can be captured and cannot be reused. The computed
radiography drastically reduces the cost by eliminating the use of chemicals
like film developers and fixers and also the need for a storage room. It also
helps to reduce the costs that are involved in the disposal of wastes due to
conventional radiography. This paper investigates whether it
is cost effective to use computed radiography over film based system at
Al-Batnan Medical Center (BMC), Tobruk,
Libya by using
Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA). Apart from the initial cost of the CR System,
based on the data collected from the center, from the year 2008 to 2012 (until
June 2012) a total of 581,566 images were produced with the
total cost incurred using film based system being USD 4,652,528. If the same
number of images were produced using a CR system the total cost incurred would
have been USD 82,600. Taking into consideration the cost of a new CR system to
be USD 120,000 the overall cost of producing these images is USD 202,600. It is
observed that an amount of USD 4,449,928 could have been saved over the period
of 5 years starting from 2008 to 2012 by using the CR system at BMC. Using Cost
Benefit Analysis, the average value of the net difference between the costs and
benefits for the conventional film based system is ?83.38 where as for the
Computed System it is 22.06. Based on the principles of Cost Benefit Analysis
it can be concluded that the system with a net positive difference is more cost
beneficial than the other. With the help of the above two analysis it can be
concluded that the use of computed radiography is definitely more cost
effective for use at BMC, when compared to the conventional x-ray radiography.