The business of healthcare continues to change and radiology groups are looking beyond the bare branches of low hanging fruit which have provided short-term fixes to various business and reimbursement challenges. 

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information technology (ONC) on Monday released the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020 with a definitive focus on interoperability. 

When vRad rolled out its latest “Look in the Mirror” Radiology Patient Care (RPCSM) Indices and Global Practice Information (GPISM) reports this past fall—the latest free-to-subscribers offerings in the company’s mushrooming analytics portfolio—CIO Shannon Werb paused to think back over his first year with the company. Driving change was the subject at hand when Werb recently took questions from imagingBiz.

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.

As 2014 winds to a close, three of radiology's brightest thought leaders offer predictions on the year ahead. There is big power in big data. Moving forward into 2015 and beyond, how do radiology practices aggregate data in a way that creates what the world of Silicon Valley has shown us to be the new paradigm? Curtis Kauffman-Pickelle, president and CEO of The Kauffman Group and publisher of ImagingBiz, asks that very question when asked to look ahead.

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).

According to Hermann Requardt, CEO of Siemens Healthcare at a briefing during the 100th Annual Meeting of the RSNA, "Healthcare is showing signs not of instability, but of transition. The US is feeling frustrated, according to health economists, that we don't get enough value from every dollar spent on healthcare in this country, compared with other countries that are spending less."