Does advanced practice in radiography benefit the healthcare system? A literature review

With ever-increasing demands on the National Health Service (NHS), members of staff are blurring their professional boundaries in the attempt to benefit the healthcare system. This review aims to establish whether advancing practice within radiography does benefit the healthcare system by examining published literature.

Key words were input into databases such as: CINAHL, Science Direct and PubMed. Various filters were applied to narrow down the articles. Key themes were identified within the literature: cost, job satisfaction, patient benefits, restrictions and workload. Having advanced practitioners undertake some of the radiologists' workload was potentially cost effective whilst continuing/increasing the standard of quality. Patients benefitted from the quality of their examinations, the high accuracy of their reports and the speed those reports were attained.

Evidence within the literature emphasises that advanced practice does benefit the healthcare system by means of: cost reduction, job satisfaction, patient benefits and workload.