The seamless interface of information systems within an enterprise is the Holy Grail in health systems for good reason: Tight integrations can yield big benefits. After replacing its PACS and tightly interfacing the new system with its electronic medical record (EMR), Springfield, Mass.-based Baystate Health is reaping the benefits of streamlined workflow and improved patient care across its four hospitals, more than 10,000 employees, cancer center and heart and vascular center. 

Nine years ago, when radiologist Kevin Barker, MD, joined the solo practice of Dr. Anson Cone, Community Radiology Associates (CRA) covered one imaging center and one rural hospital, and enjoyed high regard from referring physicians in the Texas Hill Country, a vast, 25-county region marked by rugged hills separating Austin from San Antonio.

At the most recent meeting of the Radiology Business Management Association in Charlotte, a new model for independent group practice collaboration was proposed to practices around the country. The model allows independent practices to succeed and is an alternative to the traditional radiology group alignment models of merger, acquisition, or outright takeover by a hospital or a private equity group. These collaborations can take different forms, but they share the same underlying goals: gaining the necessary resources to fulfill the needs of their primary clients—hospitals, payors and patients—inclusive of delivering meaningful information and decision support.

Radiology practices have long sought a solution to the consolidation occurring in their marketplaces, as well as the commoditization happening in their midst. The fundamental problem is delivering ever-higher levels of service and quality with diminished resources.

It is an article of faith for those who are active in the stock market that both bears and bulls can and do succeed and make money, as long as each approach is a decision based on a strategy. Bears are skeptical, cautious, hedging their bets against a rising tide that they see as illusory or unsustainable.

Brooklyn-based Urban Radiology had been a mainstay in the Coney Island community for nearly five years before its outpatient-imaging center was completely destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.  Eighteen months later, it has reopened officially to serve the community with new, state-of-the-art imaging equipment.

This year, 2014, marks the 20-year anniversary for RamSoft, Inc., a perfect vantage point from which to view 20 years of participation in the evolution of the imaging informatics industry for Vijay Ramanathan, president and CEO, and Siva Ramanathan, chief technology officer. RamSoft was founded in 1994 by N. Ramanathan, PhD, also known as Dr. Ram, a distinguished faculty member at the University of Toronto, with roots at the Toronto General Hospital. He is the father of Vijay and Siva. 

The concept of a unified storage management system to index and manage data across an organization, including data in public cloud services, company servers and employee devices is something that is commonplace, even taken for granted by employees in corporate environments, but in hospital systems, the adoption of vendor neutral archiving (VNA) systems is in its infancy, as healthcare works to catch up to the technological standard of corporate America.