The Radiology Workforce in Relation to Ultrasound - HD

Introduction

I am Dr. Ed Bluth, chairman Emeritus for the Department of Radiology at the Oxford Clinic Foundation in New Orleans, Louisiana, and also a member of the Board of Chancellors of the American College of Radiology and chairman of the Human Resources Commission.

My presentation will be talking about the radiology workforce, but in particular the ultrasound radiology workforce.

Survey Methodology

This information that I'm going to present today is based on a survey that the American College of Radiology sent through the Human Resources Commission through 2,400 practice leaders who practice in the United States.

They were asked to report on the number of radiologists who are presently in their group, the subspecialists.

They were asked to report on the number of radiologists who were in their group, the subspecialties in which they practiced based on the reason that they were hired.

We were also asked, we also asked the leaders of the groups to report on who they plan to hire during the present year, who they plan to hire next year, and who they plan to hire in three years.

Response Rates

The respondents we received were 22% of all the groups corresponding to 23% or 7,200 radiologists practicing.

This is an annual survey and 2013 is the second year that we have done it.

In the first year in 2012, we received 25% responses correspond to 31% of wall radiologists, and in this 2013 year, we received 22% responses from the leaders corresponding to 23% to more practicing radiologists.

Geographic Distribution

This represents the geographic distribution of the practices in the country.

These correspond to the graph that we could see here.

The majority of radiologists are practicing in the south, approximately 25%, the least number are practicing in the New England states.

This corresponds appropriately to the membership in the American College of Radiology, therefore represents an accurate sampling in response to the type of practices that the leaders represent.

Practice Settings

We found that approximately 54% are in private practice and approximately 46% of radiologists presently are in some employed status.

In the United States, 19% are an academic university settings 14%.

In academic clinics such as the Oxford Clinic or Cleveland Clinic or Mayo Clinic, 10% are radiologists who are employed specifically by hospitals.

1% of radiologists are employed as by, corporate employers and 1% work in the, for the government in either the VA or medical setting.

In this response, I suspect that the corporate employees are underrepresented, because several larger groups did not complete the survey this year.

Age Spectrum

Interestingly, we found this split of the age spectrum of radiologists.

We found that 7% of all radiologists, or around 2100 radiologists are over the age of 65.

22% or 6,700 are between the ages of 56 and 65, and therefore a combined group of nearly 9,000 radiologists are practicing over the age of 56 and theoretically could retire in short order based on economic health reasons or changes in the healthcare environment.

In the United States. This represents the response to the question of what is the makeup of your staff.

Subspecialty Makeup

Approximately the 21% of radiologists work as general radiologists, which is the largest number of individuals, 10 to 11% work as general interventionalists, neuroradiologist, and body imagers.

Eight to 9% are breast image or those practicing in musculoskeletal radiology.

Five, four to 5% are in nuclear medicine and 3% practice as a specialty pediatrics.

MR. And ultrasound low within this group are those who practice and specialize in chest imaging, teleradiology, women's imaging, basic research, emergency room radiology, NEUROINTERVENTIONAL radiology, kayak imaging, informatics and health services research.

Ultrasound Specialization

The survey suggests that there are approximately 1000 radiologists specializing in ultrasound as identified by the heads of their group.

In addition to this, these group of individuals, there were those who also do ultrasound to practice body imaging and also practice women's imaging.

Hiring in 2012

When we look at the workforce who was hired in 2012, we found that the largest number of individuals hired or perform general interventional radiology for ultrasound.

Around 1% of the hires were in this subspecialty.

Hiring Projections

We identified in our survey in 2013 that in the year year 20 14 14 approximately 1400 radiologists were hired compared to the 2012 survey, which projected that in the year 2012 approximately 1100 radiologists would be hired.

This was demonstrated by our statisticians to demonstrate that this is a statistically, a predictive and reliable survey instrument and therefore would be useful to project this kind of information about jobs in the future.

So we can therefore, use this instrument as a reliable piece of information.

We found out in our survey in 2013 that approximately 1% of those who are going to hire radiologists, we'll be hiring someone specializing in ultrasound in 2016.

The projection is slightly higher being 1.2% of the workforce.

When we look at actual numbers in 2013, we identified there were approximately 1400 radiologists who were hired of that group, 13 specialized in ultrasound.

The largest number of radiologists hired 213 practice general interventional radiology.

Next, followed by those practicing general radiology, which were 174 in 2013, it's projected that there'll be approximately 1500 radiologists hired in the United States in that group and in that year.

In this year, there'll be approximately 248 who are general radiologists, followed by, followed by 213, who will be interventional generalists and 13 who specialize in ultrasound.

Job Market Outlook

Therefore, we found with the statistical analysis that there'll be no difference between the aggregate a of actual 2012 and projected 2013 job availability.

Therefore, the job market for 2013 should remain flat.

And similarly, it appears that the job market for 2016 will remain flat as well unless it's changed the political, economic or social environment.

Where are the jobs? It appears that the largest number of jobs will be pre, will be found in the south and the least number will be in the northeast in the United States.

What type of practice will offer opportunities? The largest number of jobs will be in private practice followed by academic clinics and hospital employees.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, we are going to conduct this workforce annually, and the information that I presented to you represents the 2013 data.

The workforce survey is sent out to the leaders of radiology groups in January and is returned in March of that same year.

The report, the survey data is reported at the annual meeting of the American College of Radiology, which will take place in the end of April in 2014, is important to, per to point out that workforce needs will change depending on your retirement and individual finances and health issues of individuals.

And remember that nearly 2100 radiologists or 7% of the workforces already over the age of 65 and 17% of the workforce is between 56 and 55.

The number of radiologists specializing in ultrasound is similar to the number of specializing in pediatrics, mr.

And more than those specializing in chest women's imaging, basic research, emergency radiology, neuro interventional cardiac informatics, and health services research, the job market for ultrasound is expected to be flat in 2013 and 2016.

The job market for body imagers also will be flat, but there'll be a relatively more jobs available 213 for body imagers compared to 13.

I'd like to acknowledge those who've helped with the survey from the American College of Radiology.

Thank you very much.