Case Studies

There is no doubt that vendor neutral archives (VNAs) have gained favor over the last several years in managing medical images. But there is some debate over whether hospitals really need both a VNA and a PACS. If PACS can do double duty as VNA and PACS, why do you need both? As we see it, you don’t, as long as you have a true enterprise PACS and here’s why.

Nearly two decades ago, the PACS race was on in Southern California’s Inland Empire. The main event pitted the regional medical center, 439-bed Riverside County Regional Medical Center, against the larger 719-bed Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC). In 1998, Riverside won the race by about six months, installing the first PACS in the region and, in the process, becoming the first hospital in the U.S. to select Sectra PACS.

Radiologist Marc Liebeskind, MD, doesn’t need to strain his memory to recall a time when he saw a health insurer’s authorization process come between sound clinical judgment and a patient’s clearly indicated care.

Radiologists operate in a fast-paced work environment, juggling a combination of tasks that includes interpreting studies, and calls from referring physicians.

Recently imagingBiz sat down with the two of McKesson’s General Managers to discuss their views on important current imaging issues.

Case Study: UMass Memorial Health Care wanted to drive quality improvements within radiology services for its system of hospitals and clinics.

In the ongoing effort to improve its solutions with customer input, Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas will be showcasing new features in the Exa™ Platform that enhance patient engagement, referring provider satisfaction and imaging workflow productivity.

Breast-imaging patients and the radiologic technologists who serve them have long wished for a breast radiologist to be there for them—on call or already present—whenever questions or concerns arise in the exam room.

One of the latest offerings in vRad’s service portfolio would make for a good chapter in How to Do More with Less in Radiology, should such a book ever get written. The new program is the teleradiology giant’s Virtual Resident Workflow (VRW), and the title of the chapter on it would be something along the lines of: “While You’re Interpreting, You Could Be Teaching Too.”

It was early 2015 when the team at Carilion Clinic decided they had outgrown their PACS and needed to replace their decade-old system.

Mary Mahoney, MD, spoke with imagingBiz about what life is like as a department chair and shared her thoughts on several hot topics affecting breast imaging today.

In the MRI suite at St. Joseph’s Candler Hospital in Savannah, Ga., the numbers add up to a quantifiable success story.