[An economic comparison between digital luminescence radiography and conventional film processing in intensive care medicine].

The costs of a conventional film-screen radiography daylight-system and storage-phosphor computed radiography (Fuji AC-1) are compared. In 1990, 3841 radiologic procedures (mostly portable chest X-rays) were performed in 3474 patients of a surgical intensive care unit. With conventional film-screen radiography 6.8% retakes were necessary for diagnostic or technical reasons. Comparing the fixed and variable costs of both systems conventional film-screen radiography was more economic under the given conditions of the test. It is concluded that computed radiography in intensive care patients has definite advantages in terms of image quality and reproducibility, however, in order to compete successfully in the economic turf CR has to be implemented in a picture archiving and communication system (PACS).