If harmonizing the work of two or more doctors treating the same patient is a key reason for computerizing healthcare, then health information technology is singing somewhat off key.

Often lost amid the hurrahs over the promise and potential of big data to transform healthcare is how unwieldy it can be to apply in real-world settings—and how wary clinical decision-makers can be when they’re presented with it. 

When given control of their own health records in electronic format, patients are ready and willing to share their info with their own doctor or nurse. But they stubbornly resist letting other, equally critical members of the care team in on the conversation. 

Zotec Partners (Zotec), an industry-leading provider of radiology billing and practice management services, announces a billing contract extension with Imaging Healthcare Specialists Medical Group, Inc. (IHSM) in San Diego, California. 

Even when a technologist acquires an ideal image and a radiologist performs a thorough, accurate interpretation, imaging excellence can be negated if the results are not clearly and effectively communicated to referring doctors.

When it comes to dictating radiology reports to produce consistently presented diagnostic evaluations, Benjamin W. Strong, MD (ABR, ABIM), is bullish on two tools: (1) customized speech-to-text software, and (2) flexible diagnostic checklists. In fact, to vRad’s chief medical officer, the evolutionary integration of those two workflow aids—which he has been using himself and refining for vRad’s 500-plus radiologists over the past 10 years—is structured reporting.

Hybrid imaging with positron emission tomography and computed tomography (PET/CT) in the pituitary region of the brain is a promising tool for differentiating military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from those with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Marcus J. Hampers, MD, MBA, is on the clinical staff in the emergency department of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, N.H., and also on the teaching staff at the affiliated Geisel School of Medicine, but he is not practicing much emergency medicine these days. Instead, he is leading the rollout of a network of 10 urgent care centers in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, two of which opened in June, with two more scheduled to open this month.