Few processes in radiology are as dreaded as switching from a legacy PACS to a newer replacement. Often approached only when the former PACS is on its last legs, the transition between systems requires diligent selection from an ever-widening field of solutions, lengthy migration of complex (and sometimes flawed) data, and retraining of all

Since the first of the year, radiologists at Advanced Diagnostic Imaging (ADI), Belleville, Ill, have been using a new outcomes-based quality assurance program from NightHawk Radiology Services, Scottsdale, Ariz. NightHawk developed the program to realign quality assurance with patient care, focusing first on the effect a discrepancy may have on

Medicine in general is evolving toward a patient-centered, outcomes-based model, and radiology should be no exception, according to Timothy Myers, MD, senior vice president and CMO of NightHawk Radiology Services, Scottsdale, Arizona. “We’re looking at things less from the standpoint of the physician and more from the standpoint of the patient, and

Radiologists, like all physicians, have always been concerned about the quality of their work, but in recent years, the specialty’s focus on quality has been renewed. Paul Larson, MD, chair of the Commission on Quality and Safety of the ACR®, says, “Historically, we looked almost exclusively at whether we got the right answers in our reports. What

The road to PACS perfection is paved with distractions and pitfalls, Paul Chang, MD, FSIIM, says. Chang is professor of radiology, vice chair of radiology informatics, and medical director of enterprise imaging at University of Chicago Medical Center in Illinois. During the 2010 Dwyer Lecture, “The Role of Imaging Informatics in the Next Generation

The radiology department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Boston, Massachusetts, developed a policy for communicating critical and discrepant results after the Joint Commission made communications among caregivers a national priority for health-care providers. When the goal was expanded in 2007, the department took the next step and used IT

The San Francisco General Hospital/University of California–San Francisco Department of Radiology has created a groundbreaking communications tool called Radiologue. Alexander V. Rybkin, MD, a radiologist in that department, described the system in “A Web-based Flexible Communication System in Radiology,” which he presented in Minneapolis,

For over thirty years, Radiation Physics Inc (Beltsville, Maryland) has been providing mobile imaging services to the Baltimore and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas, serving long-term–care and assisted-living clients, as well as prisons and private residences. “We started doing this in 1976, and the business model has been pretty much the same