Your source for monographs, key documents, and white papers relevant to the imaging market.
Markle Foundation: A Framework for Meaningful Use and Certified or Qualified EHR
[pdf]
CHIME Statement on Meaningful Use of Health IT
[pdf]
AHIMA Statement on Meaningful Use Within Provisions of ARRA
[pdf]
Wall Street Journal Lessons in Leadership
[site]
NCRP Radiation Dose Report
[pdf]
Health Spending Projections Through 2018: Recession Effects Add Uncertainty
to the Outlook
[site]
National Spending By Medical Condition, 1996-2005
[site]
ACR Practice Guidelines and Technical Standards
[site]
Strategies for Reducing Bad Debt
[pdf]
Accounting for the Cost of US Health Care: A New Look at Why Americans Spend
More
[pdf]
Are You Optimizing Your Contract Performance Data?
[pdf]
A Framework to Guide Health Care Reform
[pdf]
Ask radiology benefit management (RBM) companies who benefits from their work, and they will claim that everybody does: health plans and insurers, because RBMs save them millions of dollars in unnecessary imaging fees; referring physicians, because RBMs teach them the appropriate studies to order; and patients, because RBMs save them from needless exams and, just as important, unnecessary radiation exposure.
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Penny Olivi, MBA, CRA, FAHRA, RT, has more than one finger on the pulse of radiology administration in this economic downturn. In addition to serving as president of the AHRA—The Association of Medical Imaging Management, she manages both the radiology department at the University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore, and the department’s physician practice at the University of Maryland School of Medicine; together, these generate more than 600,000 imaging procedures per year.
Continue reading...Women's imaging is smart business: for the over-40 female population, yearly breast-cancer screening is an annuity that, in the right hands, translates into downstream revenue for radiology providers and increased market visibility among women and their families and friends. That's why some of the country's leading imaging organizations are investing in women’s health, implementing a range of modalities and an array of marketing and wellness initiatives designed to attract and keep valuable female patients.
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Recognizing that outpatient imaging revenue is far too important to the bottom line to forfeit the business to aggressive and nimble entrepreneurs, hospitals and health systems have moved aggressively into their communities in recent years with their own outpatient imaging center initiatives. Radiology Business Journal invited executives from several health systems to discuss their strategies in light of the recent economic downturn.
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As Bob Dylan once sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Neither does it take an expert to see that the US primary care delivery model is on the verge of experiencing a tectonic shift. The weakening economy has led to an increase in the ranks of the uninsured; a recent article1 in Health Affairs predicts that the uninsured population of the United States (currently estimated at 47 million) will increase by at least seven million, or 15%, in 2010 alone.
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Do you remember medical imaging before PACS? There were images stored in different ways, in different places, at different times; images were lost, and images sat in stacks, waiting to be filed. Hours were spent retrieving them or searching in vain. It was frustrating and inefficient.
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A funny thing happened on the way to PACS: As large radiology practices adopted the software and technology to create distributed reading solutions for multiple clients, they found themselves contending with a growing number of issues concerning servers, software, and networks. Initially, these practices hired an IT person, whose duties became increasingly complex as IT solutions were applied to an expanding array of clinical, business, and operational problems. When chief executives and shareholders recognized that IT touched every aspect of their practices, some of them made a place in the executive suite for a CIO.
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Corporate CEO Jack Welch adopted a statement of management expert Peter Drucker (1909–2005) as a favorite saying: What gets measured gets managed. This phrase is particularly true when applied to radiology and imaging practices. To be an effective manager and strategic leader, it is vital to use the many resources available to you and to apply them studiously to your practice setting.
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Women's imaging is smart business: for the over-40 female population, yearly breast-cancer screening is an annuity that, in the right hands, translates into downstream revenue for radiology providers and increased market visibility among women and their families and friends. That's why some of the country's leading imaging organizations are investing in women’s health, implementing a range of modalities and an array of marketing and wellness initiatives designed to attract and keep valuable female patients.
Continue reading...
Premium ultrasound carries a significant price tag, thanks to its configuration rich with applications intended to deliver real-time views of the anatomy. Nonetheless, price appears to pose no impediment to an expanding group of imaging departments and imaging centers sold on the idea of possessing ultrasound technology so advanced that it can, in some instances, rival or surpass the utility and diagnostic value of MRI or multidetector CT.
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Our research aimed to identify and quantify the impact of radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology on inventory management and was conducted in a typical radiology practice of the medical imaging department at a large tertiary-care center in the Southeastern United States from April 2007 to December 2008. The radiology practice had two 1.5T MRI units and served an average of 220 patients per week, 132 (60%) of whom required contrast media. The practice used 100-mL bulk contrast vials, each of which could be used for seven images. There was a loss of an average of one vial per week from storage due to expiration of partially used vials. The department reordered contrast weekly and waited three days for delivery.
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In the United States, unspecified chest pain is the second most common reason for an emergency-department visit. Each year, 5 million to 8 million patients present to the emergency department with chest pain; in 2004, more than 6 million patients presented to US emergency departments with acute chest pain. Of these patients, 4% to 5% have a coronary event that is not properly diagnosed, resulting in an erroneous discharge from the emergency department.
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Radiology stands on the cusp of the golden age of advanced visualization, with the two most commonly used high-tech modalities, CT and MRI, increasingly reliant on 3D reconstructions and 4D analysis for examination interpretation. As advanced visualization for CT and MRI comes of age—bolstered by augmented processing power and ever–increasing transmission speeds—how can radiologists optimize the tools at their disposal for the most rapid and accurate diagnoses?
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Physicians and executives are similar to scientists; they like data to assist them in making decisions," Rob Cercek says. Cercek, vice president of ambulatory services at Rochester General Hospital (RGH), Rochester, NY, adds, "If you can put credible data in front of people, discussions between hospitals and physicians become more meaningful."
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Despite reports that capital equipment budgets are frozen at some hospitals, buyers were out in force at the 2008 meeting of the RSNA in Chicago. Nonetheless, professional attendance did not reach last year's level, and exhibit square footage purchased and vendor attendance also were down, reportedly.
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How did a 2000 lecture tour in China spawn a teleradiology revolution? For William G. Bradley, MD, PhD, FACR, the idea for an international business evolved from a reading that he did nine years ago in the Far East. Thanks to PACS and the Web, Bradley, who is now chair of the radiology department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center, interpreted an MRI of the brain in China and then called the neurosurgeon in the United States.
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In the United States, unspecified chest pain is the second most common reason for an emergency-department visit. Each year, 5 million to 8 million patients present to the emergency department with chest pain; in 2004, more than 6 million patients presented to US emergency departments with acute chest pain. Of these patients, 4% to 5% have a coronary event that is not properly diagnosed, resulting in an erroneous discharge from the emergency department.
Continue reading...
Radiology stands on the cusp of the golden age of advanced visualization, with the two most commonly used high-tech modalities, CT and MRI, increasingly reliant on 3D reconstructions and 4D analysis for examination interpretation. As advanced visualization for CT and MRI comes of age—bolstered by augmented processing power and ever–increasing transmission speeds—how can radiologists optimize the tools at their disposal for the most rapid and accurate diagnoses?
Continue reading...
Physicians and executives are similar to scientists; they like data to assist them in making decisions," Rob Cercek says. Cercek, vice president of ambulatory services at Rochester General Hospital (RGH), Rochester, NY, adds, "If you can put credible data in front of people, discussions between hospitals and physicians become more meaningful."
Continue reading...
Despite reports that capital equipment budgets are frozen at some hospitals, buyers were out in force at the 2008 meeting of the RSNA in Chicago. Nonetheless, professional attendance did not reach last year's level, and exhibit square footage purchased and vendor attendance also were down, reportedly.
Continue reading...
How did a 2000 lecture tour in China spawn a teleradiology revolution? For William G. Bradley, MD, PhD, FACR, the idea for an international business evolved from a reading that he did nine years ago in the Far East. Thanks to PACS and the Web, Bradley, who is now chair of the radiology department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center, interpreted an MRI of the brain in China and then called the neurosurgeon in the United States.
Continue reading...