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What nurses need to know about mobile radiography

08 October 2020
Clinical
02 October 2020
Volume 29 · Issue 18

Abstract

Nurses have a vital role in providing nursing care to patients requiring mobile radiography. Mobile radiography is requested when a patient's condition makes it impossible for them to be transported to the radiology department. All health professionals involved in mobile radiography, such as nurses, medical doctors and radiographers should be knowledgeable in this area. This is even more important in current practice, where nurse consultants and nurse advanced practitioners are assessing and referring patients for limited radiological examinations. However, there is little literature to equip nurses with knowledge about mobile radiography. The aim of this article is to raise awareness of this subject at a time when the number of patients requiring mobile radiography has increased globally, due to the outbreak of coronavirus. Critically ill patients with COVID-19 require portable chest X-rays to diagnose complications of the disease, such as pneumonia.

Nurses have a vital role to play in mobile radiography as they provide care to patients before, during and after the diagnostic imaging examination. In recent years, the scope of practice of nurses in the UK and the Republic of Ireland has expanded to allow nurse consultants and advanced nurse practitioners to assess and refer patients for limited radiological examinations (Royal College of Nursing et al, 2008; Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, 2020). This requires an understanding of imaging examinations.

Mobile radiography refers to the imaging of patients outside the radiology department using mobile X-ray equipment. These imaging examinations are commonly called ‘portable X-rays’ because of the early small portable X-ray units that were designed to be dismantled and assembled at the patient's location or bedside. Unfortunately, these portable X-ray units had a low power output, produced high radiation doses to the patients and produced poor-quality images. For these reasons, portable X-ray machines are no longer in use in medicine. However, the term ‘portable X-ray’ has persisted among health professionals and is often used in reference to mobile radiography.

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Mobile radiography
Radiation protection
Radiography