A lens on the post-COVID19 “new normal” for imaging departments

Across the globe, both the risks associated with COVID-19 to staff and patients and the reduction in demand for services during lockdowns have significantly influenced the medical imaging landscape. Staff particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 (including older staff, those with health issues, those with diabetes, and those with ethnicity risks) may have required redeployment, changes to job function, or leave from work [1]. Conversely, some staff may have been redeployed into the front line of COVID-19 management to assist in resource-depleted sites. While working from home was an option for some medical, management, and reception staff, most staff in diagnostic imaging cannot perform their duties from home. By choice or by force, many staff in diagnostic imaging took leave from work for periods during the COVID-19 crisis, in some cases unpaid leave. Indeed, staff redundancies, reduced hours, and reduced hourly pay rates were all experienced where patient load significantly changed. A combination of COVID-19-related stress, economic recession, and employment uncertainty is a cocktail potentially devastating to the diagnostic imaging workforce and their mental health and wellbeing.