Perhaps no sector is currently more prominent in the U.S. economy than healthcare, and demand for healthcare labor force statistics has grown enormously. For associations in the healthcare arena, the challenge is not finding reliable information as much as determining the optimal source.

In a recent market assessment project, the American College of Radiology set out to get a concrete measurement of a field that had proven challenging to quantify. The planning stage was particularly important to sufficiently define ACR’s measurement goals. The organization may have been interested in identifying the broadest audience possible: the number of medical professionals that practice radiology in at least some capacity. Instead, ACR determined that the appropriate measurement target would be board-certified radiologists in the U.S.

Several sources were reviewed during the project, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Medical Association, medical specialty licensing boards, state medical licensing boards, and articles published in academic journals and in other places. Not surprisingly, the multiple sources of information produced different, yet reasonably close counts of the total number of radiologists practicing in the U.S.

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