In a recent Journal of the American College of Radiology: JACR article, 1 Richard Heller III, MD, MBA, a radiologist with Radiology Partners and chairman of radiology at Advocate Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, proposed a framework for understanding radiology-group value (based on specific health-system needs). He calls it the total value equation. 

As radiology groups continue to contemplate the transition from fee-for-service to value-based medicine, the question of what constitutes value is central to their plans for the future—and unearthing the answer begins with understanding the needs of hospitals and health systems in evolution, according to Geraldine McGinty, MD, MBA, chair of the ACR® Commission on Economics.

In November 2013, Virtual Radiologic (vRad) released its initial set of radiology patient-care (RPCSM) indices, the first findings-based benchmarking measures for imaging activity and utilization based on the global practice’s clinical data repository. Jordan Halter, vice president of solutions for the company, says, “With 23 million studies and growing, vRad’s database reflects practicing radiology on a large scale. That means that we have insight that reflects the national radiology market. vRad wants to use these indices as a way to start a dialogue in radiology. Everyone must start measuring value, quality, and performance as we transition from a fee-for-volume to a fee-for-value model. Until now, nobody quite knew how.” 

In an effort to help other physicians diagnose and treat complex neurological cancers and disorders, radiology researchers at Johns Hopkins have taken collective diagnostic registries to the next level with the development of a library of children’s brain images. The image databank, being used today by doctors at Johns Hopkins, currently houses 7,000 brain images of Hopkins patients, and should be publicly available in three years, according to Thierry Huisman, MD, a professor of radiology, neurology, and pediatrics and the director of pediatric radiology and neuroradiology at the Hopkins Children's Center, via an announcement from Johns Hopkins.

Despite hopes for high enrollment through the health-insurance exchanges (HIEs) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the numbers are well below forecast levels as the March 31 enrollment deadline approaches.

As my partner Doug Smith is fond of saying, the awakening period for hospitals is upon us.

There is little question that consolidation and integration in the health-care sector is in full force and will continue to dominate the landscape in 2014—given the markedly high level of healthcare entities merger and acquisition activity in 2013, of that we can be certain.

With the addition of the 71 hospitals operated by Health Management Associates (HMA), Community Health Systems (CHS) becomes the largest hospital chain in the country, public or private, by number of facilities.