The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will now offer same-day ultrasound reports to select patients coming to its out-patient department who need the test for urgent treatment, medicine change, or are old or differently abled. The hospital has opened 35 such slots beginning Monday and treating doctors have been asked to provide reasons why the patients need the urgent test.

At present, patients coming to the OPD have to wait two-three months for an ultrasound. There are separate machines available for patients who are admitted to the hospital wards or come to the emergency department where they can get the test the same day.

“As part of our endeavour to improve patient care, radiology is starting same-day ultrasound facility. Films and reports will be issued on the same day. 35 slots have been designated for same-day ultrasound in New RAK (Rajkumari Amrit Kaur) OPD basement to cater to patients with appropriate clinical conditions as given below. 1. Ultrasound examination is required urgently for deciding clinical management 2. The patient is a senior citizen, physically handicapped or very sick,” reads a letter written to the director by the head of the department of radiology Dr Deep Narayan Shrivastava.

The letter states that the requisition form must be signed by a faculty member confirming the urgency of the case, with a phone number of the treating doctor mentioned, so that the radiologist may get in touch if need be. Patients in need of same-day ultrasound will have to reach the radiology department by 1 pm.

Ultrasounds for which the patients have to fast overnight or do other preparations, doppler scans, and scans needed for pregnancy will not be allowed in the same-day ultrasound facility.

“This initiative is being done to bring down the waiting period for an ultrasound at the hospital. We have increased the number of ultrasounds being done each day by doing it for long hours and working through the lunch hour. No manpower or machines were increased. We did a similar thing for plain X-ray a few months back and now there is no backlog for the test,” said Dr Shrivastava.

The hospital does about 150 ultrasounds for OPD patients each day.

He said that during the trial run, they decided to offer the services to the old and differently abled because for them travelling is difficult and often expensive.

“For the X-rays, we streamlined the process by segregating patients based on whether they needed a chest x-ray, abdomen x-ray, or limb x-ray. There are a couple of people who have been trained to just segregate patients and some who do the x-ray. We were able to increase the numbers by 20% to 30% without any increase in manpower or machines. This, however, will be difficult for ultrasound but we will slowly increase the number of walk-in slots,” said Dr Shrivastava.

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Anonna DuttAnonna Dutt is a health reporter with the Indian Express. She writes o... read more