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.

Thin-client Enterprise Visualization: A Top-down View

Say that Amazon.com operated using a thick-client model (it doesn’t, but pretend it does for argument's sake). Imagine, then, the nightmare that the head of the company’s operations would face if tasked with making sure that every customer could visit, navigate, and shop on the site successfully following even a minor revision or upgrade.

MGH Decision-support Study: A Shot Across the RBM Bow

Sponsored by Hitachi Healthcare Americas

A new study1 finding that radiology order-entry (ROE) and decision-support (DS) tools act to curtail utilization rates for advanced imaging is being celebrated as proof that a White House proposal to deploy radiology benefit managers (RBMs) as Medicare gatekeepers is unnecessary and ill conceived.

The Future of Hospital-based Outpatient Imaging

Is outpatient imaging on the hospital campus still strategically relevant for hospitals and health systems? If so, what will it take to capture this volume in an increasingly competitive market? These are the two primary questions facing hospitals and health systems as they contemplate their campus-based outpatient imaging strategies.

Productivity Tracking for Radiologists

Because there are not enough radiologists available to meet demand, practices must learn to make the most of radiologists’ available time, according to a paper presented in Chicago at RSNA 2008: Personal Learning in the Global Community. On December 3, Tracking Physician Productivity: Is It Necessary and How Should It Be Done? was presented by Fred

Reinventing Medical Imaging

I recently attended a very interesting and intellectually stimulating conference for top leaders in the field of outpatient imaging services. The Imaging 100 conference was held in Carlsbad, Calif, where imaging executives representing various provider segments assembled to discuss innovative solutions to hot marketplace issues. Most attendees were

Heroes in Proving the Value of Imaging: G. Scott Gazelle, MD, MPH, PhD

Heroes in Proving the Value of Imaging is an occasional series about radiology professionals whose work demonstrates the value of the specialty through research, governmental affairs, humanitarian efforts, and more. In Part 2, ImagingBiz showcases the work of G. Scott Gazelle, MD, MPH, PhD, director of the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA)

CMS Decision on CTC Prompts Restrategizing

The CMS decision to retain nonapproval status for CT colonography (CTC) as a screening method for Medicare patients was a bitter pill for radiology to swallow—all the more bitter because, prior to the February 11 decision, the mood had been optimistic. After years of battling on behalf of CTC, researchers and CTC advocates seemed finally to have

Atlas Scanned

In trying to understand the current shift in economic and political winds, I thought it would be helpful to take a new look at a classic depiction of the US capitalist system, as portrayed in one of American fiction’s great works. In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, protagonist John Galt is the leader of a small group (think top 1% of earners) of early