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.

Watchdog urges hospitals to determinedly strive for ‘excellence in diagnosis,’ suggests 29 ways to proceed

In a point directly pertaining to radiology, Leapfrog advises hospitals to have ready access to a radiologist 24/7 either onsite or via teleradiology—not only to read emergency exams but also to supply input on imaging test selection.

International, 271-point consensus reached on teaching ultrasound to undergrads

Undergraduate medical school students should be taught to visualize fluid-filled cavities with ultrasound and how to use ultrasound to guide a needle safely into a fluid-filled cavity, sonography experts advise in an authoritative new set of educational recommendations. 

Should patients and referrers worry that radiologists have ‘normal blindness’ just like everyone else?

All humans carry a condition that, in certain circumstances, keeps their eyes from seeing something obvious right in front of them.

Most patients want access to medical imaging records, but majority aren’t getting it: Small survey

More than half of a couple hundred patients who completed a new survey, 52%, ran into trouble when trying to see their medical images and reports or share same with their care team.

5 ways to financially thrive in the face of chronic little pay cuts

Radiology researchers from six leading medical schools have laid out some attuned and readily adoptable strategies for groups challenged to prosper in a time of difficult reimbursement dynamics.

Technologist ‘learning opportunities’ vastly outnumber imaging ‘do-overs’ across almost 1 million exams

Reviewing a 20-month run with a radiologist-to-technologist communications tool, researchers have found minor problems with image quality 10 times more common than patient callbacks for repeat imaging.

Generic CT contrast supplier pledges ‘immediate relief’ from shortage

A global tech and pharma vendor is set to inject U.S. healthcare with a set of generic contrast agents, the first of which will be an FDA-approved substitute for GE Healthcare’s Visipaque.

True or false? ‘AI does not influence radiologists’ performance’

A healthcare AI startup in Silicon Valley is partnering with a top-tier medical school—and hopefully a few good radiologists—to test a hypothesis that’s increasingly crucial to radiology.

Around the web

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

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.