How has the COVID-19 pandemic affect the rejection rates and repeat reasoning of digital radiography?

Objectives: To compare the digital radiology rejection rates and reasoning pre-COVID-19 (PC) and during COVID-19 (DC) from September 2019 to August 2020.

Methods: This record-base retrospective study where data were extracted from the radiography equipment (Carestream Health, Rochester, New York, USA) at the Department of Radiology, King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia over 12 months. The data were equally divided into PC and DC.

Results: The DC rejection rate decreased from PC by 2.6% with a significant =0.00001. During COVID-19 there were 15,376 images of different body parts, versus 23,861 images during PC. Position errors were the main reasons for rejection for both PC (39.8%) and DC (42.7%), followed by technique errors (PC: 19.2%) (DC: 17.2%).

Conclusion: Different sectors in hospitals were affected by COVID-19, including diagnostic radiology, in the positive direction. Thus, the DC rejection rate was markedly reduced compared with PC. This may be due to radiology technicians becoming more cautious in dealing with patients.