Cost Analysis Utilizing Remote Dosimetry
The current environment to attract talent is difficult in all industries. Healthcare faces recruiting challenges and a shortage of physicians, nurses, and all allied healthcare professionals. According to Fiercehealthcare.org, the current shortage of available healthcare workers will continue over the next 3-5 years. Unfortunately, the AMA sees oncology as one of the specialties particularly prone to the long term shortage.
Hospitals and Clinics were forced to modify their staffing regimens during COVID. Radiation Oncology departments have struggled to fill not only physician and nursing positions but medical dosimetry clinicians remain in short supply. We reviewed the large national recruiting sites and learned that more than 500 dosimetry positions are open. When one considers that there are approximately 4000 radiation oncology facilities in the US, it is easy to estimate that approximately 13% of every site needs at least one medical Dosimitrist.
However, this simple math is not quite accurate as many facilities really don’t need a full medical Dosimitrist. They need partial medical dosimetrists! Unfortunately it's difficult to hire a “partial person”.
During Covid, many radiation oncology centers sent the dosimetrists home and learned that planning for radiation CAN be accomplished without any deleterious consequences in safety or efficacy. The largest challenge was managing the workflow.
Now radiation oncology facilities have come to realize that they can utilize remote medical dosimetry. They are learning that access to better quality and experienced employees are possible. Finally, they are learning that remote medical dosimetry is more economical in situations in which a FTE is not required. Here are some quick questions when considering remote medical dosimetry:
Determine if you really need another full time medical dosimetrist. If you are not adding over 350 plans immediately per year, you may wish to utilize a remote medical dosimetry service.
Can you attract medical dosimetrists with broad experience seeing complicated cancers? Anyone you hire should make your program better.
Do you have communication software that makes the interaction between the radiation oncologist and medical dosimetrist efficient?
Is it better for your program to have continuous as needed remote medical dosimetry or are you comfortable managing the HR challenges that accompanies part time and full time staffing?
Depending on the answers to these questions, utilizing remote medical dosimetry may be a good option. At Atlantic Oncology, we specialize in providing remote medical dosimetry services that are tailored to meet the needs of modern radiation oncology practices. If you are looking to expand your dosimetry services, we invite you to contact us through the link on our website. We look forward to talking with you to see if Atlantic Oncology’s remote medical dosimetry might be a good fit for your hospital or clinic.