Posted on March 16, 2011 www.HealthImagingHub.com

The shortage of radiologists was recently recognized in several countries, for instance, the United States have been facing a significant shortage in radiologists since 2000, which made a large number of healthcare settings use telemedicine and remote radiology services to overcome this issue. Some hospitals even had to deal with teleradiology centers outside the United States in order to be able to complete interpretation and diagnosis of its radiology images. The current demand on radiologists and radiology technicians resulted in significant increase in radiology salaries, a diagnostic radiologist would have a salary ranging from $227,000 to $317,000 a year, Interventional radiologists on the other hand have higher salaries with a range of $286,500 to $401,000. It is also known that the highest radiology salaries are provided in Southern US while the lowest are on the Eastern regions of the country.

Radiologists Salary in Europe:

In Europe, on the other hand, shortage in radiologists is also an emerging issue; yet, healthcare facilities are not using teleradiology services on the same levels as their counterparts in US are doing due to much stricter laws in Europe that hinders the use of teleradiology services outside the continent. The radiologists’ shortage reflected the elevation of salaries in Europe, for instance, in UK; a senior radiographer would have about 37000 GBP per year, and the same is true in other countries in the continent. Significant raise in radiologists and radiology technicians’ salary is taking place to persuade experienced individuals to join hospitals and healthcare facilities, especially the private ones.
The situation is much worse in the Middle East. The problem is so obvious that a lot of countries in this region have radiology technicians performing their jobs in addition to writing medical reports on the patients to overcome the existing shortage in experienced radiologists especially in smaller cities. So far, the use of teleradiology services in Middle East is still too limited. A lot of countries especially in the Arabian Gulf are hiring foreign radiologists and radiology technicians to meet the gap between supply and demand in their healthcare communities.
The primary solution to overcome the global shortage in radiologists and radiology technician is to increase the use of teleradiology services, since it would save time and cost for healthcare facilities. A single teleradiology center can provide services to a multiple number of hospitals, using internet as a connection, to exchange diagnostic imaging files along with its interpretation and diagnosis.