Over the past five years, medical imaging enterprises have learned the hard way that adaptability and flexibility are prized qualities required for survival. They have weathered reimbursement cuts, increased scrutiny and the general feeling that they are ceding control of their businesses to outside agencies with agendas and motivations far different than theirs. What was once a smooth operation providing key medical information is now a daily battle to maintain viability.

Sharp HealthCare (San Diego, California) has undertaken multiple initiatives aimed at implementing organizational and service improvements, as well as enhanced patient care and clinical outcomes. Its latest endeavor is the imminent addition of a PACS that will accommodate non–DICOM images and that, as such, will facilitate enterprise image sharing across specialties, modalities, and facilities (as well as with clinical entities outside its boundaries).

For the vendor-neutral archive (VNA), James M. Conyers says, making the A stand for archive no longer adequately describes the technology’s true capabilities. Conyers, national director of Enterprise Architecture Solutions for FUJIFILM Medical Systems, explains, “It’s more of an architecture than an archive. An archive is just one component of what the VNA actually does.”

Purchase a vendor-neutral archive (VNA). Design it to store DICOM and non–DICOM images. Integrate it seamlessly with electronic medical record (EMR) system. Watch its users visually enrich their patients’ medical records.

Medical practices that once focused almost solely on the quality of care are increasingly including profitability and long-term viability in their strategic plans.

On September 8, at the California Radiological Society’s 2012 Annual Meeting & Leadership Summit in San Francisco, Paul Chang, MD, presented “Developing and Deploying Business Dashboards and Scorecards in Radiology.”

Welcome to the inaugural issue of MedAnalytx, the web journal of business analytics and informatics for the health-care practice.

To many people, the evolution of the US health-care system is something taking place through the legislative process—in particular, the 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.