The 1987 Gordon Richards Memorial Lecture: The Future of Radiography — Cassetteless or Filmless?

Abstract

A six-year experience of the first cassetteless radiology department has shown that it produces considerable improvement in speed and efficiency of patient handling, reduced physical labor for the technician, and substantial financial savings, amounting to approximately one third of the total non-medical budget.

This is contrasted with the potential cost of a totally digital (filmless) department. The digital acquisition devices and their image processing systems are considerably more expensive. Image display comparable to conventional radiographs (for example the full-sized chest film) is markedly inferior in resolution and totally prohibitive in cost. Image storage and recall of the same amount of data as currently handled by the conventional department are presently beyond the capabilities of any commercial communications system, and the potential cost is completely unacceptable. Projections of the imminent advent of the filmless department are grossly over-optimistic, whereas the development of cassetteless systems offers an alternative route to improved patient handling and increased cost-efficiency.