Washington, D.C. – The Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) today announced the publication of the new edition of the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Standard, which provides capabilities that allow digital imaging technologies to interact seamlessly. The updated edition of the international standard includes an extensible markup language (XML) representation of the standard.

With the clock ticking on stage 2—and many vendors struggling to obtain 2014 certification—CMS and ONC propose letting providers use the 2011 Edition of certified electronic health record technology (CEHRT) to attest to Stage 1 and 2 meaningful use of health IT in 2014.

You won’t find any of the apps developed at the SIIM Hackathon available at the iTunes store, but the event provided a great test kitchen for shiny, new, Web-friendly versions of DICOM and HL7 that promise to speed the development of applications for medical imaging while preserving a DICOM standard-based backend.

Big data means big work ahead for imaging informaticists if they are to accomplish the potential transformation of radiology, says Katherine P. Andriole, PhD, FSIIM, director of imaging informatics, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston.

The “internet increasingly is a swamp,” says Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO John Halamka in a recorded interview with Information Security Media Group, prompting the prominent CIO to focus in 2014 on what he calls “increased security maturity” throughout the healthcare enterprise.

The ACR makes a strong case for the inclusion of appropriateness criteria linked to clinical decision support (CDS) in computerized physician order entry (CPOE) in its comment letter on proposed 2015 edition EHR certification criteria from the Office of the National Coordinator of HIT.

The message from the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights is loud and clear in its announcement of a $1,725,220 payment by provider Concentra Health Services to resolve potential violations of HIPAA Privacy and Security laws related to the theft of laptops containing protected patient data.

Mobile computing—via smart phones, tablets and, increasingly, wearable devices like smart watches—is increasing exponentially.