INTEGRIS Health, Oklahoma’s largest healthcare network, recently had to find a solution to a significant problem: its nine hospital PACS were out of space, their software was out of date and the situation was out of control.

When your organization puts values first, those values inform everything, from how patients are treated to the technology you install to provide care.

With radiology continuing to refine its niche in a rapidly evolving healthcare environment, Sruti Nataraja, MPH, managing director at the Advisory Board Company, believes that one of the major themes coming out the past year is, “The consumer-driven health care market has arrived.”

With the possible exception of diffusion-tensor MRI for concussion in athletes, no clinical imaging procedure stands a chance of bumping information technology-with its attendant ripple effects on regulatory compliance and business performance-off radiology’s figurative front page in 2016.

Industry watchers seemed intrigued but not especially surprised when Konica Minolta Medical Imaging announced its acquisition of 100 plus-employee Viztek in early October. The response was understandable, as the fusing was equal parts bold and sensible.

Achieving unprecedented clinical and business efficiencies. Winning new business. Brandishing vanguard-level technology prowess while employing zero IT staff. Such are the returns mid-size radiology practices are realizing from their selection of the cloud-based, hardware-agnostic IRP/Plexus Imaging Workflow Management system.

The time has come for the profession of radiology to embrace a label it has been furiously trying to beat back for years: commoditization. The battle against those who wield it as a pejorative is not just futile, it's also counterproductive.

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