Health Technology Reviews
Key Messages
What Is the Issue?
- Canada’s Drug Agency (CDA-AMC) received a request to explore the relationship between full-time equivalent (FTE) medical radiation technologists (MRTs) and MRI exam volumes nationwide.
- Workforce availability — particularly the number of MRTs — has been identified as a key factor that may impact the delivery of MRI services.
- Although a recent study examined this relationship within a single province, no national-level research has explored how MRT staffing relates to MRI exam volumes across Canada.
- Understanding this relationship could help inform operational planning for jurisdictions and health care facilities, particularly in aligning workforce capacity with service demand.
What Did We Do?
- CDA-AMC analyzed site and unit-level data gathered through the 2022–2023 Canadian Medical Imaging Inventory (CMII) National Survey.
- The goal was to examine the relationship between the number of FTE MRTs per MRI unit and the average annual volume of MRI exams.
- To ensure comparability across facilities, sites were grouped based on the number of MRI units onsite.
What Did We Find?
- At a national level, most sites (69%) reported 4 or more FTE MRTs per MRI unit.
- This trend was consistent across sites with 1 to 3 MRI units.
- Among the 3 sites with 4 or more MRI units, 2 reported having 3 FTE MRTs per unit.
- On average, sites with higher numbers of FTE MRTs per MRI unit tended to perform more exams annually.
- Although higher staffing levels are associated with greater exam volumes, throughput is also influenced by a range of other factors, including exam complexity, research and teaching use, scheduling models, and broader policy and funding decisions, that shape how MRI services are delivered.
What Does This Mean?
- This report provides the first national-level evidence-based analysis to support workforce planning for MRI service delivery. These findings can help decision-makers in the following ways:
- to estimate appropriate staffing levels by showing how staffing needs change based on factors such as site size and exam volume
- to demonstrate the operational impact of adequate staffing, with higher staffing levels correlated with increased annual exam performance, suggesting that well-staffed medical imaging departments are better positioned to meet demand
- to guide more informed planning at both individual facility and health system levels, especially when considering expansion or resource reallocation.