SCCT's Starter Kit Offers Resource to Guide Health Care Facilities Establishing Cardiovascular CT Service

January 27, 2023—The Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) announced the introduction of the SCCT starter kit, a collection of resources to guide health care facilities through each stage of starting a cardiovascular CT service.

According to SCCT, the starter kit includes pro formas, PDF documents, videos, website links, journal articles, and customizable Word and Powerpoint documents in four stages: upfront planning, equipment and facilities, services and personnel, and daily operations. More information and subscriptions are available online at https://scct.connectedcommunity.org/SCCTstarterkit.

As summarized in the SCCT press release, the kit provides the following:

• The upfront planning stage helps site administrators explore project planning and budgeting for a new cardiovascular CT service line and includes financial and operational planning templates.
• The equipment and facilities section focuses on deploying the most significant investments required for setting up a CT service, including scanner selection, resources for clinical procedures, and site planning considerations.
• The services and personnel section provides guides for training and credentialing, as well as tools to help institutions execute a capabilities analysis and develop a strategy for clinical services to be provided as part of a cardiovascular CT angiography service.
• The final stage covers daily operations, including policy, procedure, and report templates, and tools for marketing the new cardiovascular CT services to a variety of audiences.

Scott Schubert, CEO of Arineta and chair of the SCCT Advisory Council, which provides industry and policy insight to the SCCT Board of Directors and spearheaded the project, noted in the press release that the starter kit is curated by clinicians working in partnership with industry professionals to enable a new cardiac CT user to leverage the best practices from experienced users and to provide the highest patient care.

"Prior to the starter kit, it can take many months for a new cardiac CT practice to assemble the necessary resources," commented Mr. Schubert in the SCCT press release. "I believe the starter kit can shorten that timeline to weeks, excluding the facility construction time and time to hire staff."

Mr. Schubert further explained that, although the evidence for cardiac CT is clear, there is a significant problem today with availability and access to cardiac CT. He stated, "During my experience in industry leading a CT equipment business, I found that large hospitals had the experience and resources to start a cardiac CT practice, but community hospitals and outpatient clinics needed help. Although all cardiac CT practices will benefit, the focus of the SCCT starter kit is to help these community hospitals and outpatient clinics to provide high quality cardiac CT for their patients at point-of-care."

"We interviewed many cardiac CT practices about how they started their practice, and what tools and materials were needed. Industry members of the advisory council also have deep experience about the processes for selecting equipment and preparing for facility construction," noted Mr. Schubert in the SCCT press release.