Digital vs conventional radiography: cost and revenue analysis

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyse and compare the operating and investment costs of two radiographic systems, a conventional and a digital one, and to evaluate the cost/revenue ratio of the two systems. The radiological activity over 1 year for chest and skeletal exams was evaluated: 13,401 chest and 7,124 skeletal exams were considered. The following parameters of variable costs were evaluated: the difference between variable proportional costs of the two technologies, the effective variable cost of any size film, including the chemicals, and for different sizes of digital film, variable costs of chest plus skeletal exams performed with the two techniques. Afterwards the economical effect was considered taking into account depreciation during a time of utilization ranging between 8 and 4 years. In the second part of the analysis the total cost and the revenues of the two technologies were determined. The comparison between the digital and conventional systems has shown the following aspects: 1. Digital radiography system has a much higher investment cost in comparison with the conventional one. 2. Operating costs of digital equipment are higher or lower depending on the film size used. Evaluating chest X-ray we reach a breakeven point after 1 year and 10,000 exams only if displayed over 8 x 10-in. film and after 30,000 if displayed over a 11 x 14-in. film. 3. The total cost (variable cost, technology cost, labour cost) of digital technology is lower than that of the conventional system by 20 % on average using 8 x 10-in. film size. 4. Digital technology also allows lesser film waste and lesser film per exam