Quality

The focus of quality improvement in healthcare is to bolster performance and processes related to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Leaders in this space also ensure the proper selection of imaging exams and procedures, and monitor the safety of services, among other duties. Reimbursement programs such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) utilize financial incentives to improve quality. This also includes setting and maintaining care quality initiatives, such as the requirements set by the Joint Commission.

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Frequent AI use may increase radiologists’ risk of burnout

The problem is particularly pronounced among members of the specialty who already have a high workload or are skeptical of artificial intelligence. 

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CMS approves new MRI standards related to remote scanning

Accrediting body IAC said revisions help imaging facilities ensure the safe delivery of MRIs, including when key personnel are located off-site.

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Patients frequently fail to obtain follow-up imaging. Could radiologist-referrer disagreements be to blame?

Harvard researchers recently set out to answer this question, sharing their results Friday in the Journal of the American College of Radiology 

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Hospitals pilot policies to test older radiologists’ mental and physical fitness

About 5% of U.S. healthcare organizations have now implemented such competency testing, with about 13% of physicians deemed unfit for the job. 

Does placing a patient’s photograph in the EHR influence radiologist behavior?

Economic and psychological studies have shown that seeing an individual’s face can change one's actions—a dynamic relevant to rads who experience minimal patient interaction. 

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Most referrer requests for imaging are inadequate, new scoring system shows

Amid calls to reduce the rate of low-value imaging exams, experts have developed RI-RADS, a scoring system for rating imaging requests. 

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Outsourced radiology reports less thorough than in-house ones, researchers claim

Free-text reporting also was associated with significant omissions in abdominal anatomical structures, researchers detailed in the journal Cureus

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Effort to stop primary care providers from ordering low-value imaging hits brick wall

Researchers with the University of California, Davis, detailed their randomized clinical trial in JAMA Network Open Wednesday. 

Around the web

The nuclear imaging isotope shortage of molybdenum-99 may be over now that the sidelined reactor is restarting. ASNC's president says PET and new SPECT technologies helped cardiac imaging labs better weather the storm.

CMS has more than doubled the CCTA payment rate from $175 to $357.13. The move, expected to have a significant impact on the utilization of cardiac CT, received immediate praise from imaging specialists.

The all-in-one Omni Legend PET/CT scanner is now being manufactured in a new production facility in Waukesha, Wisconsin.