Standardizing Productivity Measurements For Nuclear Medicine

Abstract

We present a productivity measurement method that can be implemented in any nuclear medicine department and will provide significant benefits to the nuclear medicine manager. These include a comparable and consistent method of calculating productivity information and accumulating data that can be used as a basis for calculating fiscal reports, including revenue generation, projecting future workloads, staffing requirements, etc. Measuring the productivity of a nuclear medicine facility is a difficult task. According to several national surveys, there is great variation in the way patient care workload is reported. Establishment of standards of productivity measurement in nuclear medicine departments should be developed. Productivity values or related measurements should be as complete and accurate as possible. Nuclear medicine managers and hospital administrators may wish to compare their current productivity measurements to hospitals of comparable sizes and staffing, but all the variables used to generate the figures should be calculated or derived by the same method or techniques. We base our productivity calculations on a procedure accounting method derived from the Current Procedure Terminology (CPT) Code Book, an established and accepted reference, by which many major health insurance companies determine reimbursement.