Business Intelligence

Providers utilize business intelligence to monitor referral patterns and collaborate with clinicians who order their services. Such analytics tools have also been deployed in the specialty to improve productivity, track patient satisfaction and bolster quality.

The United State of Imaging in Tacoma

Located on the Puget Sound about 35 miles south of Seattle, Washington, the community of Tacoma and surrounding Pierce County benefit from a number of innovations that are linking local radiology providers in an uncommon collaboration. Through IT and service agreements across two competing hospital systems and two separate radiology groups, all

Clinical Decision Support: Planting a Decision Tree in Radiology

After a six-month period of collecting baseline data, the CMS Medicare Imaging Demonstration began on April 1, 2012. The imaging industry is watching this test closely. If the two-year demonstration shows that a computerized decision-support system can guide referring physicians to make appropriate orders for advanced imaging tests—and, at the same

Families Continue to Struggle With Paying for Medical Care

For January through June 2011, one-third of people in the United States were members of families having difficulties paying for medical care, according to a March 2012 report.¹ One in five people was in a family having problems paying medical bills, one in four was in a family paying medical bills over time, and one in 10 was in a family that had

MU2: Value Proposition for Radiology

On March 7, 2012, the proposed rule¹ governing stage 2 of the CMS incentive program for electronic health records (EHRs) and the 2014 EHR certification criteria² were published to generally favorable reviews from organized radiology. Mike Peters, director of legislative and regulatory affairs for the ACR®, explains why the ACR has spent so much

Vertigo

No matter how good your service is or how expert and reliable the care, if someone isn’t taking care of the back of the house, health care is out of business. I learned that the hard way when my wonderful dentist (who used to tell her elderly clients that there was a sale on fillings: two for $25) could no longer pay the rent, sold her business to

Varian Medical Systems Sees "Healthy Growth" in Revenue and Orders in Q2

Varian Medical Systems is reporting "healthy" growth in revenue and net orders for the second quarter of fiscal year 2012. The company generated $720 million in revenues during the quarter, up 11 percent from the prior-year period, and ended the period with a $2.7 billion backlog, up 18 percent from the same point in fiscal year 2011.

ACR Weighs Pros and Cons of Reporting Breast Density to Patients

As a greater push continues to be made to inform women about their breast density as a risk factor for breast cancer nationwide, it's important to consider a few caveats, says the ACR.

Around the web

The ACR hopes these changes, including the addition of diagnostic performance feedback, will help reduce the number of patients with incidental nodules lost to follow-up each year.

And it can do so with almost 100% accuracy as a first reader, according to a new large-scale analysis.

The patient, who was being cared for in the ICU, was not accompanied or monitored by nursing staff during his exam, despite being sedated.