QI forum
How many IR suites are needed at your hospital?
This column highlights various quality improvement projects that were presented during the 2nd Annual Quality Improvement Forum at the 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting in Nashville.
W
hen Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey, announced expansion plans that
would add 100 beds, a question arose. How many IR suites would be required to support this increased capacity?
“Leadership wanted to know what evidence exists to guide such planning,” said Edwin Pagan, MD. “While SIR has published standards
for staffing, equipment and peri- procedural environments, no guidelines currently address how many IR suites, or dedicated ultrasound and CT procedure rooms, are appropriate for a given hospital size.”
Recognizing the importance of aligning resources with patient needs, Dr. Pagan, along with Sum Chi Lydia Poon, BS, and Sabina Amin, MD, sought to establish benchmark for national IR resource allocation based on hospital size and designation.
According to Dr. Pagan, the primary objective of their project was to gather national data on IR resources and analyze it to identify patterns that could guide decision-making.
“We reviewed responses in quartiles to detect meaningful trends, even with a modest sample size. Our measurable goal was to create an initial framework for benchmarking that could be expanded with larger, future datasets,” he said.
Geographic locations of survey respondents.
The survey was distributed via SIR Connect and designed to capture details about hospital designation, patient populations, available IR facilities and faculty numbers.
“The results showed striking variation across institutions, underscoring the need for comprehensive, standardized approaches to IR resource planning,” Dr. Pagan said. “Our findings point to the value of a centralized database that could inform policy and departmental decisions nationwide.”
Dr. Pagan and his team received feedback from 21 facilities, 15 of which were Level 1 trauma centers. They found that per 100 beds, the average IR facility has four IR suites, one ultrasound space, one CT space and 1 shared facility. In addition, per 100 beds, the average responding facility handled 25 cases a day, supported by three faculty, eight technologists and eight nurses.
The most significant takeaway, Dr. Pagan said, was recognizing how deeply infrastructure impacts care delivery.
“Even highly skilled teams face limits when resources are inadequate,” he said. “This project highlighted that resource allocation directly affects wait times, procedural safety and care quality.”
Researchers also discovered an interesting trend: when only looking at hospitals with a capacity over 500 beds (17 of the 21 responding facilities), the majority fell between the median and 75th percentile for cases, faculty, techs and nurses.
“This experience underscored the need for IR leaders to advocate for our specialty during institutional planning and development,” Dr. Pagan said. “Personally, it has inspired me to engage more actively in data-driven advocacy for IR expansion to ensure that patient needs are matched with adequate resources.”
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