About half of the 93 million CT exams performed in the U.S. in 2023 used IV contrast, and volume is expected to keep climbing. At that scale, contrast is an operational resource as much as a clinical one, and small differences in how protocols are carried out are repeated across every scanner, shift and site. Our panel examines where variability enters the CT contrast workflow, why it persists and why optimizing CT contrast utilization is becoming increasingly important.