Radiology 101

The story of medical imaging in America.

  1. 01 Common Scans by Frequency The landscape of medical imaging, by the numbers.
  2. 02 Top Problems Where radiology strains: cost, access, and error.
  3. 03 Patient Journey From referral to results: the human path through a scan.

Key Statistics

01 · The workforce
3.6%

of all U.S. physicians are radiologists[1]

39,000 of 1,082,187 physicians[2]

0.305 interventional radiologists per 100,000 people, on average[3]

02 · The workload
870M

imaging scans performed in the U.S. yearly

Calculated by adding up the annual scan volumes found for each imaging type.

03 · The investment
$470B

out of $5.3 trillion U.S. yearly health spend is for radiology.[4][5]

Radiology accounts for nearly 8.9% of the spend. This figure excludes dental imaging.

04 · The reach
8 in 10

of all hospital visits in the U.S. involve some form of diagnostic imaging[6].

05 · The impact
+0.67yrs avg.

of life expectancy because of medical imaging[7].

06 · A typical day

In 1 day, a radiologist reads[8]:

35 CTs or MRI scans
or
100 mammograms
or
175 x-rays
07 · Accuracy
1 in 25

imaging scans have missed findings[9]

08 · The innovation
76% of all FDA-cleared, AI-enabled medical devices are for radiology[10]
1,104 of 1,451 AI-approved devices all other AI · ~24%

FDA stands for Food and Drug Administration; AI stands for artificial intelligence.

Definitions

To keep the language simple, we use “scans” as an umbrella term for every type of medical imaging exam, regardless of the technology used.

References

  1. 01

    Averaged across three workforce estimates.

  2. 02
  3. 03
  4. 04
  5. 05
  6. 06
  7. 07
  8. 08
  9. 09
  10. 10