When Keyur Sathe, MHA, decided to put his nearly two decades of healthcare leadership and entrepreneurialism to work in a bold new venture—one that would, in his words, help “bend the arc of healthcare” toward greater value—he didn’t have to look far for inspiration.

Secure Direct Messaging capabilities have become must-have components for many if not most users of RIS and PACS. While Meaningful Use’s requirements around the technology have spurred much of the adoption, Direct Messaging has grown in popularity by its own merits.

The pace of consolidation in the medical imaging industry, which could be accurately described as feverish from 2010 to 2013, has cooled.

With more than one million patient contacts each year, Lee Memorial Health System considers patient engagement the order of the day every day. For Mike Smith, CIO of the six-hospital, 1,423-bed organization based in Fort Myers, Fla., this enterprise-wide emphasis means constantly working to ramp up IT-enabled interactions via—among other interfaces—an increasingly in-demand patient portal.

January 1, 2017, is likely to be a red-letter day for radiology. As of this date, physicians ordering advanced diagnostic imaging exams (CT, MRI, nuclear medicine, and PET) for Medicare beneficiaries must, in compliance with the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, consult government-approved, evidence-based appropriate use criteria through a clinical decision support (CDS) system.

Riverside Radiology and Interventional Associates (RRIA), Columbus, Ohio, was an early pioneer in the transition from analog to digital radiology, and radiologist Peter Lafferty, MD, vividly recalls his first encounter with the interpretation of digital images in the late ‘90s.

The question in the headline is not open-ended and philosophical. It is multiple-choice and strategic, as any given hospital or multi-hospital system now inevitably perceives its contracted radiology practices as occupying ground in one of only three possible capacities.

We’re only halfway through the current calendar year, and already radiology practice in the U.S. has been jolted by not one but two major transactions.