AIIMS mandates in-house CT scans of patients

New Delhi: CT scans of patients admitted to wards and in outpatient departments of AIIMS should be done at the institute itself to avoid unnecessary delay in their treatment, the hospital administration has said.

It has also listed steps to increase the number of appointments for such diagnostic imaging procedures.

Further, new AIIMS director Dr M Srinivas has constituted a committee to recommend requirement for computed tomography (CT) equipment and manpower to meet the institute's long-term needs, besides exploring the option of mobile CT scanners.

The committee is required to submit its report by October 15.

An office memorandum issued by Dr Srinivas on October 11 listed measures, which included making all the 10 CT scanners at the institute functional round the clock and the need to optimise the time taken to do scans so that more patients could be attended to.

The memorandum also called for operationalising CT equipment at the National Centre for Ageing in Geriatric Block and Surgical Block throughout the day.

Further, it asked the radio diagnosis department head to speed up procurement of CT equipment for the Mother and Child Block and New Private Ward. It also advised to explore the possibility of consolidating cases of general anaesthesia in order to reduce the time lapse in between scans — after anaesthesia, the time taken for extubation of the scanned patient, and the intubation of the next patient. According to the memorandum, CT equipment for research or study should be used only on Sundays unless it is required for immediate intervention.

"There is a long waiting list for CT studies at AIIMS. Hence, the patients go to private diagnostics centres for their CT scans. Many patients are having their CT scans repeated at AIIMS, as the scans done at some private diagnostics centres either do not yield sufficient diagnosis or they are incomplete. "The CT scans of the patients from wards/OPDs should be done at AIIMS only, to

avoid any unnecessary delay in the treatment," the memorandum read.