Reducing hospital emergency department costs through aggressive use of diagnostic imaging

With the current pressure to decrease costs, we in emergency radiology have an advantage that can be useful for our hospitals: by aggressively using diagnostic imaging, we can help the hospital reduce the costs of taking care of emergency department patients. An appropriate response to the pressure to decrease costs in emergency diagnosstic imaging is to analyze the impact of imaging on costs, patient management decisions, and patient outcome. The most convincing type of analysis is a cost-minimization analysis in which costs are defined as resources used by the hospital in taking care of patients. This review discusses the types of analyses that can be performed, perspectives of analyses, definition of costs, and definition of quality.