NHS Fife could outsource radiology to the other side of the globe to address a recruitment crisis.
With the health board struggling to attract qualified radiologists, foreign doctors could be called in to plug the gap.
Four Fife consultant radiologist posts are being advertised by NHS Scotland, but the board has a contingency plan if the posts are not filled, which could solve the problem while saving money.
Medical director Dr Gordon Birnie said: “Theoretically, we could actually use radiologists in Australia. This has the potential to change the whole shape of radiology because we would not need to employ as many radiologists.
“We have people working on this at the moment. There are commercial companies and also health boards that can do this.”
The technology used is a Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS), which enables X-ray and scan images to be stored electronically.
Dr Birnie assured patients that confidential data was protected under the system.
“Data protection is built in,” he said. “It is already used elsewhere and although we haven’t used it a lot yet, we have used it for some highly specialised reporting. At the moment we mainly send scans down to Edinburgh.”
The Scottish Government has set a national target that no patient should wait longer than 12 weeks for an outpatient consultation following a referral.
David Stewart, chairman of NHS Fife’s operational divisional committee, said having X-ray reports written up in different time zones could help the health board meet waiting time targets.
He said: “Because they have reduced the waiting time target down to 12 weeks, it means we have got to work even faster.
“What they could, in theory, do is take an X-ray or scan here, fire it off to say Canada and because they are working in a different time zone the radiologist doing the report could fire it through for us in the morning.”
It is not the first time the health board has struggled to recruit consultants in radiology. A decade ago, medics were flown from South Africa to address the shortfall.
NHS Tayside said it did not outsource radiology reporting.