NEW YORK (July 1, 2014) — In response to a recent national study showing that CT scans in a select high-risk population lower lung cancer deaths, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center has launched a lung cancer screening program for those at risk for developing the disease. The program uses low-dose CT scans to detect cancer in its earliest stages, giving patients a significantly better chance to survive the disease. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for men and women in the United States and current data shows that most lung cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage.

Scottsdale, Ariz., July 1, 2014 – PHS Technologies Group LLC, a unit of PACSHealth LLC and developer of software that monitors patient exposure to ionizing radiation, today announced that Dell Healthcare and Life Sciences will become a marketing, distribution and hosting partner for its DoseMonitor® OnLine software solution.

The eye-popping jury award to the daughter of a Boston woman who succumbed to lung cancer could not have come at a more sobering time. The specialty of radiology is preparing to embark on a new public screening initiative in the form of low-dose CT lung-cancer screening, and a radiologist is successfully sued for missing a nodule on an x-ray in 2005, a notoriously difficult read under any circumstances, but especially in the ED, with little or no access to patient history.

In what is believed to be Massachusetts’s largest medical malpractice award this year, a Boston jury awarded $16.7 million to the daughter of a Boston woman whose lung cancer was missed on a chest x-ray.

Pittsburgh-based Foundation Radiology raised $2.5 million from investors, reports the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Shortly after the new business rules governing electronic funds transfer (EFT) transactions went into effect on January 1, Robert Tennant, MGMA senior policy advisor, began to ask for a show of hands when he spoke to physician groups to get a sense of how many physicians were receiving EFT payment via virtual credit card.

At the most recent meeting of the Radiology Business Management Association in Charlotte, a new model for independent group practice collaboration was proposed to practices around the country. The model allows independent practices to succeed and is an alternative to the traditional radiology group alignment models of merger, acquisition, or outright takeover by a hospital or a private equity group. These collaborations can take different forms, but they share the same underlying goals: gaining the necessary resources to fulfill the needs of their primary clients—hospitals, payors and patients—inclusive of delivering meaningful information and decision support.

Radiology practices have long sought a solution to the consolidation occurring in their marketplaces, as well as the commoditization happening in their midst. The fundamental problem is delivering ever-higher levels of service and quality with diminished resources.