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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Don’t Just Improve the Patient Experience—Design It

Identifying the problems that suppress patient satisfaction can prove as elusive an exercise as formulating the remedies. The creatively collaborative process known as design thinking can help with both.

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Physicians ordering low-value screening tests: What can be done?

Primary care physicians who order a large number of one low-value screening test tend to order large numbers of other low-value screening tests as well, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open. The authors suggested that high-intensity interventions focused on these physicians may be one way to reduce such low-value care going forward.

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High-dose radiation therapy improves survival for patients with ‘incurable’ cancer

Researchers have found that high-dose radiation therapy can improve survival for oligometastatic patients, according to findings to be presented at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

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DBT detects 34% more breast cancers than traditional mammography

New research out of Sweden found that digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), or 3D mammography, can detect 34 percent more breast cancers than traditional mammography. A majority of the identified breast tumors were classified as invasive.

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Should women 30-39 years old with focal breast symptoms undergo US, mammography or both?

Targeted breast ultrasound should be the initial imaging evaluation for women between the ages of 30 and 39 presenting with focal breast symptoms, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology. Mammography can provide some value in detecting cancers distant from the area of clinical concern, yet its cancer detection rate (CDR) in such a scenario is still rather low.

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The Workspace of the Future: Making Breast Imaging Work Flow

Sponsored by Sectra

PACS is powering better workflow in breast imaging, transforming the way breast imaging radiologists read studies and interact with one another by improving physician efficiency, accuracy and saving time. Metrics matter in healthcare today and now excellent efficiency, productivity, quality of care and provider and patient satisfaction are measures of success that belong together in the pursuit of better breast imaging.

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Researchers develop alternative metric to judge a radiology journal’s impact

The journal impact factor (JIF) has long been used to assess a scientific journal’s impact on researchers and academics—but is it really the best way to measure this information? A group of researchers has developed an alternative metric based on citations originating only from citable items in the journal, sharing their findings in Academic Radiology.

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Want to improve your case report's overall quality? Find a radiologist

Involving a radiologist as a co-author in a case report containing radiological images improves its overall quality, according to research published in the Journal of the American College of 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.