Survey of current status and physician opinion regarding ancillary staffing for the IR suite

To survey the status quo of ancillary staffing in predominantly hospital-based interventional radiology (IR) suites and to assess interventional radiologist attitudes toward current IR procedure room staffing availability and appropriateness.

Invitations to an online survey composed of 26 questions focused on levels of IR suite ancillary staffing as well as operators' opinions of current IR procedure room staffing were sent via email to 2,284 active Society of Interventional Radiology members.

There were 777 survey responses. Nurse staffing count per IR room was at least one in 90% (n = 699) during regular hours and 93.6% (n = 730) during off-hours, respectively. A second technologist was frequently used during regular hours and, to a lesser extent, during on-call hours (n = 341 [43.9%] and n = 122 [15.7%]), respectively. Ten and 15% of IR respondents believe staffing support is inadequate for most interventional procedures requiring moderate sedation during normal business hours and off-hours/weekends, respectively, and 69% and 56% of IR respondents believe anesthesia support is inadequate during normal business hours and during off-hours, respectively.

The number of technologists used per IR suite varies across practices and frequently exceeds that of earlier American College of Radiology recommendations, whereas use of IR suite nurse staffing is consistent with approximately one per suite and constant. However, there is dissatisfaction among surveyed interventional radiologists with availability and appropriateness of staffing of the IR procedure room, particularly during on-call hours and weekends, as well as with anesthesia support for emergent cases. No evidence-based guidelines for staffing the IR suite currently exist. This underscores the need for further investigation with the ultimate goal of creating such guidelines.