ArticleAnnals of nuclear medicine2026
Measuring the immeasurable: an approach of nuclear medicine activity using relative value units.
Article in Annals of nuclear medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
purposeImplementing a relative value unit (RVU)-based system able to quantify activity and resource utilization in a nuclear medicine department (NMD).
methodsA retrospective study was conducted in the NMD of a tertiary hospital, analyzing costs and procedures performed during the first half of 2024. A list of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures was drawn up, and the cost per procedure was calculated. Thyroid scintigraphy was considered as the unitary reference of the RVU. For the cost RVU (cRVU), the total expense of a procedure was divided by the unitary cost of the RVU. Complexity RVU (xRVU) was obtained, excluding the radiopharmaceutical cost.
resultsIn the first semester of 2024, 5245 procedures (diagnostics and ambulatory therapies) were performed. The catalog comprised 44 diagnostic procedures and 7 therapeutic procedures. The RVU had a cost of 99.885 euros. For diagnostic procedures, the mean ± SD of cRVU and xRVU was 4.057 ± 4.020 and 1.631 ± 0.494, respectively. For therapeutic procedures, the mean ± SD of cRVU and xRVU was 45.164 ± 66.000 and 14.072 ± 10.546, respectively.
conclusionThe cRVU per procedure varied significantly between diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. The expense of the radiopharmaceutical overstates the actual complexity of the procedure. The novel definition of xRVU, excluding radiotracer cost, offers a more realistic measure of the staff and departmental performance.
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