Spine interventional pain injections have dramatically increased in volume in the past three decades. High referral volumes at our institution necessitated using both a hospital-based interventional suite and a clinic-based suite scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis. We sought to determine whether the clinic-based suite provided benefits in efficiency and health system cost in comparison with the hospital suite without compromising quality of care.
To investigate differences between outpatient procedures performed in hospital-based procedure rooms (HBPRs) and clinic-based procedure rooms (CBPRs), we reviewed all consecutive outpatient spine interventional pain procedures performed by the interventional neuroradiology service over a 12-month period. We analyzed procedure complexity, fluoroscopic times, procedural times, patient wait times, and health system costs for each case, as well as any complications.
Our analysis demonstrated similar procedural complexity between sites with decreased average fluoroscopic time (112 seconds versus 163 seconds, P = .002), procedural time (17 min versus 28 min, P < .001), and wait time (20 min versus 38 min, P < .001) in the CBPR versus the HBPR. In cases without trainee involvement, procedural and wait times were decreased (P 14 times the amount to perform than in the CBPR.
Performing spine interventional pain procedures in a CBPR adds value by decreasing procedural, fluoroscopic, wait times, and health system cost compared with an HBPR without compromising safety.
Copyright © 2021 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Shifting Spine Interventional Pain Injections From the Hospital to a Clinic Setting: Increased Efficiency and Decreased Health System Costs.
