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More scans, more scanners.

reported having had a non-emergency MRI, CT or angiography in the past year (Statistics Canada 2003). That’s up 25% since 2001. These scans were delivered by more machines than ever before. By the beginning of 2004, Canada had 338 CT scanners, up 44% from a decade earlier (Canadian Institute for Health Information 2004). The number of MRI machines grew by almost four times over the same period, from 40 to 151 scanners. (See Figure 1.) Despite these increases, Canada continues to rank below the midpoint among member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the number of MRI scanners and CT scanners per million population. For example, Canada ranked 13th among the 20 OECD countries reporting MRI data for the latest year comparable data were available. However, having more machines does not necessarily mean that more people receive imaging services. Manitoba, for example, had about 2.6 MRI scanners per million population in 2001, half the number England reported. Yet the province reported a higher scan rate – 17 scans per 1,000 people in 2001–02, compared to 14 in England (Canadian Institute for Health Information 2003). (Given that Manitoba’s definition of scans is narrower than England’s, this comparison likely underestimates the difference in scan rates.) This example illustrates that a wide range of factors may explain the variations in international supply and utilization patterns for medical imaging services and technologies.