Mitigating the economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic on nuclear medicine: a different viewpoint
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EDITORIAL
Mitigating the economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic on nuclear medicine: a different viewpoint Y. M. AlDalilah 1 & A. Chiti 2,3 & Jamshed Bomanji 1
# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
In this day and age of COVID-19, the post-COVID era, and the new normal, most nuclear medicine departments will have lost between 15 and 30% of their full capacity [1, 2] in order to meet the requirements of infection control and social distancing [3, 4]. This new normal will remain with us until we manage to control/treat/immunize against the virus [5]. The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is now materializing. The carnage is all around, brutal contraction of western economies, increased un-employment, collapse of air travel, and tourism are but a few examples. In health services, it is predicted that the austerity drives will start soon [6]. As service departments (nuclear medicine/imaging), we are always on the back-foot trying to justify everything we do. PostCOVID-19, our managers, for their own job security, will promise to make units efficient and profitable and they usually do so by increasing the numbers scanned or cutting costs. But a third road to sustainability is rarely mentioned: Putting Prices Up. Managers frequently fail to ask how they might do better at plucking the goose to obtain the most feathers with the least hissing. The spiel from the management consultants who advise the health services on pricing—whether specialist individuals or giant generalists like Deloitte or PWC (https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/covid-19/pdf/pwc-ushealth-covid-19-survey-healthcare-providers_5-11.pdf)—is that it is now more vital than ever to be smart at it. In today’s austere age, many units cannot depend on rising patient
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Editorial * Jamshed Bomanji [email protected] 1
Institute of Nuclear Medicine, University College London Hospital, 5th Floor 235 Euston Road, London NW1 2BU, UK
2
Humanitas Clinical and Research Center – IRCCS, via Manzoni 56, 20089 Rozzano, Mi, Italy
3
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Humanitas University, Via Rita Levi Montalcini 4, 20090 Pieve Emanuele, Milan, Italy
activity volumes to lift their profits. As for cutting costs, most units have already pared them to the bone to the extent that it compromises the quality and occasionally patient safety and pushed further may lead to closure of the service. Prices are all that is left. And a service can do a lot with clever pricing, to boost its share of the limited health care spending-power that is out there. So how do we do this? Let us draw some parallels, e.g., makers of large volume high-tech products such as Apple, Samsung, and Huawei can opt to add slick new features and push up prices (https://marketrealist.com/2014/02/applespremium-pricing-strategy-product-differentiation/). Another example is the case of luxury goods, their exclusivity (Brands) is a large part of their appeal, and this in turn is a function of their price, so firms usually have scope fo
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