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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Breast cancer overdiagnosis may be common among older women, study contends

The findings point to a "real need for better tools to identify which women may benefit from screening and which breast cancers are unlikely to be progressive." 

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ACR shares concerns about specialty’s ‘struggle’ to participate in alternative payment models

Barriers to radiologists’ success in MIPS include their ineligibility to earn maximum incentive adjustments, despite perfect performance. 

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Medicare spent upward of $3.8B on low-value imaging and cancer screenings in 1 year: MedPAC

“Imaging for nonspecific low back pain” was listed as the most frequently occurring low-value service, impacting upward of 9.3% of beneficiaries. 

EHR nudge helps health system drop use of unnecessary lumbar X-rays by 53%

Researchers with NYC Health + Hospitals detailed their large-scale quality improvement project in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

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Private equity-backed healthcare services bring more harm than good to patients, report reveals

Given the rapid growth of PE ownership in healthcare, the report's concerning data give pause to how such entities should be regulated, experts involved in the work suggested.

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Only 38% of patients receive appropriate follow-up care for incidental pulmonary nodules

The findings were derived from 2,500 cases diagnosed between 2018-2019 at an urban tertiary care center and followed for two years afterward.

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Physician assistants order imaging at rates higher than primary care doctors

Measures to optimize the value of radiology services will be necessary as the strained PCP workforce is increasingly augmented by other providers, experts wrote in JACR. 

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Eyeing overutilization, health system schools fledgling internists in Imaging Wisely

Following the intervention, learners demonstrated improved and sustained knowledge about high-value image ordering, experts wrote in JACR. 

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