XIFIN, the revenue-cycle management vendor based in San Diego, has begun working with teleradiology titan vRad to market a one-stop mashup of all diagnostic reports from radiology, pathology and clinical labs.

When it comes to imaging the heart to detect coronary disease and other disorders of the ticker, cardiac PET/CT makes SPECT look silly just for trying. And that’s just on the clinical front. It’s got its economic attributes too.    

When is the right time to add a vendor-neutral archive (VNA)? For DCH Health System, a Tuscaloosa-based hospital enterprise serving West Alabama, the decision coincided with an ambitious expansion of the cardiology department of its flagship hospital, 600-bed DCH Regional Medical Center.

Through both organic growth and merger-and-acquisition activity, the New Brunswick, NJ-based mega-practice University Radiology has increased in size from 61 to 96 radiologists in just six years. The task of technologically knitting all practice and service sites together into one integrated whole has fallen to practice CIO Alberto Goldszal, PhD.

Outshined by the introduction of the Apple Watch, Apple’s ResearchKit, a new iOS software framework was also introduced at the Apple event this week, allowing physicians and scientists collect and monitor clinical data from iPhone users who volunteer to join medical research studies.

Michael Trambert, MD, had long suspected the workflow reporting automation made possible by the tightly integrated PACS/RIS/VR solution used by the Santa Barbara Radiology Medical Group (SBRMC) was saving him about an hour each day. A two-pronged study1 presented at the recent meeting of the RSNA confirmed that the conjectured efficiencies were even greater than he thought—adding up to 75 minutes per day.

Databases, including that of a RIS, are fine for managing simple, linear workflows: Think scheduling, completing and interpreting exams. If you add in a step that makes things just a bit more complex—even something as seemingly basic as checking if the patient is in hospital or at home and needs an appointment reminder—then the works can quickly gum up.

The medical imaging community is buzzing over the GE MRI recall—by now, no other words are needed to name it—and the chatter will probably continue for a long time to come.