Health Affairs

Health Affairs, 27, no. 6 (2008): 1491-1502 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.27.6.1491 © 2008 by Project HOPE	New Online   Getting Health Reform Done   After the State of the Union   Incremental Reform   E-Health in Developing World   Most-Read Articles in 2009

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Imaging Boom

Rising Use Of Diagnostic Medical Imaging In A Large Integrated Health System

Rebecca Smith-Bindman, Diana L. Miglioretti and Eric B. Larson

Little has been published characterizing specific patterns of the dramatic rise in diagnostic imaging during the past decade. In a large health plan, 377,048 patients underwent 4.9 million diagnostic tests from 1997 through 2006. Cross-sectional imaging nearly doubled over those years, rising from 260 to 478 examinations per thousand enrollees per year. Imaging with computed tomography (CT) doubled, and imaging with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tripled. Cross-sectional studies added to existing studies instead of replacing them, and the annual per enrollee cost of radiology imaging more than doubled. The dramatic rise in imaging raises both costs and radiation exposure.

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