Business Intelligence

Providers utilize business intelligence to monitor referral patterns and collaborate with clinicians who order their services. Such analytics tools have also been deployed in the specialty to improve productivity, track patient satisfaction and bolster quality.

Role of the Center Manager: Driving Productivity by Nurturing Cooperation

The team at OGH Imaging LLC, Grand Coteau, La, faces a daunting task every day: living up to the expectations of both OGH’s hospital and physician investors while managing approximately 70 patient studies a day across eight modalities (MRI, 16-slice CT, ultrasound, DR, digital mammography, fluoroscopy, bone densitometry, and calcium scoring).

Avoiding Nightmare PACS Outages

Preparation is the difference between unexpected PACS downtime and a nightmare, Michael D. Toland told his audience in Seattle on May 17 at the 2008 annual meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine. Toland, who is PACS administrative team manager for the University of Maryland Medical System, Baltimore, presented PACS Worst Case

Long-term Data Management and Migration for PACS

PACS data migration is so important that every PACS acquisition should include a plan for outbound migration at the end of that system’s life, according to Frederick M. Behlen, PhD. Behlen is an officer, director, and shareholder of LAITEK Inc, also known as Migratek™ Data Migration Services, Homewood, Ill. He serves as cochair of the DICOM–HL7

Palm Beach Radiology Institute: Digital Out of the Box

Sponsored by FUJIFILM Healthcare Americas

At Palm Beach Radiology Institute, operated by Palm Beach Radiology and Imaging Associates (PBRIA), there is no film, there never has been film, and no one expects ever to see film. When the outpatient imaging center opened a year ago, it was already an all-digital environment, built from the ground up to accommodate a digital infrastructure and a

NightHawk Offers Model for QA

It’s easy to let quality assurance (QA) slip into a lip-service category, but that is something that a nighttime stat-reading teleradiology service can’t afford to do—particularly if it is an industry leader like NightHawk Radiology Services. Dionne Watts, quality-assurance supervisor, says “QA for teleradiology is important because the client

Radiologist, Find Your Voice

In a major front-page story, "The High Cost of Precision," in its Sunday, September 7, 2008 edition, the Los Angeles Times once again focused on the negative side of CT technology. Its opening statement positioned its argument by saying, "CT scans produce detailed views of internal organs, but they expose patients to significant radiation." The

The Next Wave: Compliance With Medicare IDTF Standards Requires Ongoing Diligence

Sponsored by Hitachi Healthcare Americas

To say that the health care regulatory environment has been active over the past two years would be an understatement. The focus of this article is Medicare: the primary payor for health care services in this country and, often, the standard by which other payors establish their payment rules. Revisions to Medicare regulations often foretell what

The Dynamics of Reimbursement and High-quality Care

Access to high-quality patient care is a cornerstone of customer-focused service delivery, Michael A. Silver, PhD, says. In turn, that goal is supported by technology that enhances performance and allows the imaging provider to do more with less. Part of making less go further is maximizing reimbursement through better management, he adds, ensuring