To counter the significant levels of morbidity and mortality associated with pericardial disease (disease of the sac around the heart), experts from the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR), and the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) came together to review evidence and provide future guidance to clinicians. For the first time, an expert consensus statement on the appropriate use of multimodality imaging in the diagnosis and management of pericardial diseases will be published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography (JASE). The writing group was chaired by Allan L. Klein, M.D., FASE, director of Cardiovascular Imaging Research and the Pericardial Center and an echocardiographer from the esteemed Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

Earlier this year my brother-in-law bought a pick-up truck. Its six-cylinder engine saves fuel by running on four cylinders. A computer chip fires up the other two cylinders when accelerating, then turns them off when cruising.

In March, Carestream conducted a commissioned survey[1] of U.S.-based medical patients measuring consumer attitudes toward patient portal technologies. I had the opportunity to discuss the results and their significance to the industry with Cristine Kao, Carestream Health’s marketing manager for global healthcare IT.

When physicians began utilizing advanced visualization, the software was limited to academic institutions and large hospitals. It was part of a dedicated workstation with dedicated hardware, making the technology a standalone application that was not typically utilized beyond the walls of the department where the workstation was located. Physicians would retrieve digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) images from a modality and then work on the images at the workstation.