When Schuylkill Health in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, started evaluating PACS to replace an existing system, a radiology information system (RIS) was not on the shopping list. The radiology department that served two hospitals and two specialty imaging centers used a hospital information system that had provided basic RIS functionality.

Marcus J. Hampers, MD, MBA, is on the clinical staff in the emergency department of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, N.H., and also on the teaching staff at the affiliated Geisel School of Medicine, but he is not practicing much emergency medicine these days. Instead, he is leading the rollout of a network of 10 urgent care centers in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, two of which opened in June, with two more scheduled to open this month.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) recently announced that healthcare spending costs rose 9.9 percent in the first quarter of 2014, which was the largest quarterly increase in more than 30 years. The continued rise in healthcare spending costs has a direct effect on the entire United States population, but most directly effects consumers via overall higher healthcare costs including higher insurance premiums. 

In an environment where radiologists are consistently being asked to do more with less, a simple increase in production is no longer a viable remedy to a problem. Practice managers and physician owners need to work smarter, instead of just harder. Using business intelligence data for predictive analytics, they are beginning to run their practices more efficiently, but also more effectively, challenging the status quo and using data to affect change. 

Mecklenburg Radiology Associates (MRA), is a key imaging services provider for Novant Health, a multi-state hospital system that primarily serves the mid-Atlantic region.

Erkan Akyuz was named president of McKesson Technology Solutions' Imaging & Workflow Solutions in May, 2014. Well known in imaging circles, Akyuz previously served as president and CEO of Vital Images, Inc, as well as executive vice president and chief technology officer at Agfa Healthcare. Akyuz brings extensive industry experience, strong leadership and a focus on customer success, and he is well prepared to further McKesson’s mission to break down information silos and improve the quality and cost effectiveness of care delivery. Health IT Executive Forum recently spoke with Akyuz about his perspectives on the current market, new opportunities and where he will take McKesson’s Imaging & Workflow Solutions division.

Preparing for the paradigm shift to value-based care remains a topic of intense focus and discussion while the concept continues to be defined in a meaningful way, according to Cindy Hardin, executive director, Infrastructure Product Management in imaging and workflow solutions at McKesson. 

A year into implementing a better method to track and report patient radiation dose and the team at University Hospitals Case Medical Center (UHCMC) in Cleveland says they are on the right track. The center of UHCMC’s dose tracking and reporting is Sectra Dose Track™, the dose-monitoring and reporting platform from Sectra.