ADAPTING ACQUISITION PROTOCOLS FOR COVID-19 PATIENTS: A RADIOGRAPHERS’ PERSPECTION IN ITALY.

Abstract

Introduction
Radiology departments played a crucial role during the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic providing imaging to help physicians managing the infected patients. This scenario affected healthcare workers (HCWs) during their daily activities. Therefore, the scope of this study was to evaluate the operating procedures, the acquisition protocols for x-ray and CT  examinations for infected patients and the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) software e during the Covid-19  pandemic.

Materials and methods
This survey was designed by some Italian scientific associations of radiographers. The questionnaire was administered via social media and the targeted population was all the HCWs working within the Radiology Departments in Italy and the  questionnaire was available online from January to March 2022. Demographic and epidemiological data, number of radiographers, x-ray and CT methods of investigation, protocols used in x-ray and / or CT and Artificial
Intelligence software applied in the radiology department were the sessions of the survey.

Results
Comparisons between participants that work in public versus private healthcare facilities were carried out using chisquare tests and Fisher tests. The responders were 1376 and 73.7% of them worked in public healthcare facilities.
Private healthcare facilities had fewer CT scanners available in general (p < 0,001), hence only 18% of them affirmed
to have 2 or more CT scanners, and not have CT scanners dedicated to confirmed or suspected Covid-19 patients only
(p < 0,001). 66.3% of the participants stated that only one radiographer was involved in the execution of portable
CXR (chest x-ray) for infected patients. 

Conclusions
This survey highlighted how radiographers adjusted their acquisition protocols when it came to acquire portable or
standard CXR and chest CT scans for infected patients over the different waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. Using dedicated equipment, adopting tailored scanning protocol and implementing AI software were the main strategies applied.