The Introduction and Development of the H-index for Imaging Utilizers: A Novel Metric for Quantifying Utilization of Emergency Department Imaging.

The ED imaging h-index allows identification of patients who undergo significant ED imaging, based on a single-digit patient-specific metric that incorporates both annual ED visit number and medical imaging resource intensity per visit. While ED patients with an ED imaging h-index ≥ 2 represented a minuscule fraction of privately insured individuals, they were associated with one-fifth of all ED imaging resources.