Quality

The focus of quality improvement in healthcare is to bolster performance and processes related to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Leaders in this space also ensure the proper selection of imaging exams and procedures, and monitor the safety of services, among other duties. Reimbursement programs such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) utilize financial incentives to improve quality. This also includes setting and maintaining care quality initiatives, such as the requirements set by the Joint Commission.

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Mammography in crisis

Mammography is making headlines again with the recently released United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) draft breast cancer screening recommendations—bookended by a humbling prediction from the National Cancer Institute that breast cancer cases could increase by 50 percent over the next 15 years. 

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Better breast care, unbounded by geography: That’s BelleBridge

Sponsored by Sectra

Breast-imaging interpretations by telemedicine? More than a few have said that it couldn’t be done—or, at least, that it couldn’t be done well.

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Partners Healthcare writes the book on legacy data archival

Sponsored by FUJIFILM Healthcare Americas

What do you do with legacy data-storage applications containing near-antique patient information—so old it hasn’t been accessed in up to 20 years—that may yet be needed for legal, financial, clinical or population-management purposes?

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CMS: Sleek and simplified, stage 3 is ‘Meaningful Use for everyone’

Sponsored by FUJIFILM Healthcare Americas

It’s T-minus two and a half years, give or take, on the liftoff of Meaningful Use stage 3. In 2018, every eligible hospital and eligible professional must attest to a single set of eight objectives—or suffer reduced Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements—in what is expected to be the final and definitive MU stage.

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Accepting that credit card could cost you, rad practice

The American Medical Association is warning medical practices to beware private payors bearing virtual credit cards. The “convenient” payment method is increasingly being used to conceal hefty—and avoidable—fees.

McKesson wins one in a Windy City suburb

McKesson’s business performance services division has won the business of Elmhurst Radiologists, a 12-doc practice operating within 259-bed Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, part of the three-hospital Edward-Elmhurst system outside Chicago.

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Roundtable discussion: Driving clinical quality with operational efficiency, pt 1

Sponsored by vRad

Two mandates are driving U.S. healthcare policy: improving quality and reducing costs. At vRad, leadership has embraced these concepts and integrated them into its corporate mission.

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Memo to academic rads: Time to mix, mingle and market online

More than three-quarters of private radiology groups, some 76%, are actively marketing themselves on Facebook, Twitter and the like. Less than a third of academic radiology departments (28%) are following suit—but that’s likely to change, and soon.