While health care players and politicians have long debated the issue of medical transparency, deeper scrutiny of physician–industry relationships has produced a general consensus on one aspect of the dispute: The climate has changed.

A familiar face on exhibit floors from Chicago to Vienna and in hospital radiology departments around the world, Robert Cooke, has participated in the commercial development of PACS from its very early days. Currently vice president and general manager, network business, FUJIFILM Medical Systems, Stamford, Connecticut, Cooke has spent the past

At the 2009 annual meeting of AHRA: The Association for Medical Imaging Management in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 12, two representatives of the ACR presented “Quality and Safety Response to National Initiatives.” The information was presented by Krista Bush, ACR director of diagnostic modality accreditation and director of the nonbreast imaging

In 2005, Lima Memorial Health System (LMHS), Lima, Ohio, was managing its 100,000 imaging studies per year through a traditional hospital–radiologist relationship. LMHS contracted with a 10-member radiology group that handled all of the health system’s imaging, and according to a longstanding policy within the group, each member was paid an equal

If service, patient safety, and profit weren’t incentives enough, now hospitals and imaging clinics have another inducement to go digital: the Obama administration’s federal health care stimulus plan, which stresses health care IT and electronic medical records.

It’s as extreme a transition as any IT professional could imagine: moving from a remotely hosted RIS to a fully integrated RIS/PACS over the course of just a few short months. Bill Cummins and his team, however, had ample motivation to make the switch. The director of medical imaging at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Wyoming had seen

The Obama administration is pursuing an aggressive timetable to deliver on a campaign promise to make affordable health care available to all US residents. Though the task is daunting, the original timetable of late autumn is still achievable.

In a session at this month’s meeting of AHRA: The Association for Medical Imaging Management in Las Vegas, Nevada, Lyn M. Mehlberg, BS, CNMT, FSNMTS, a self-described regulations junkie, predicted that regulators—including the Joint Commission, CDC, OSHA, and CMS—are poised to come down hard on radiology on the issue of infection control in