The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 changed the healthcare IT landscape for providers by offering money in exchange for the adoption and implementation of electronic medical records (EMR). One year later, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) upped the ante with new regulations for privacy, accountable care and insurance coverage. The combination of the two acts has left most providers and provider organizations struggling to see the forest through the trees as the deadlines to comply with both acts draw ever closer.

As research and development continues to reveal the benefits of medical imaging in healthcare, vendors are steadily improving imaging scanners for added efficiency and workflow. Because advanced visualization technologies are a part of the larger medical imaging discussion, these products are also evolving and growing in response to innovation within medical imaging. 

Even for the most seasoned radiologists and hospital administrators, the rapid advances on new technology such as cloud storage, Web-based software and mobile apps may leave some wondering where to start when vetting healthcare IT vendors. For those who feel this description fits them, you are not alone; a session on this topic was packed solid during the 2014 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual meeting in February.

When Radiology Associates of Venice & Englewood (RAVE) replaced its 2D mammography systems with 3D technology last year, it was an unusual move. The practice’s existing 2D systems were still in prime working condition, performing 15,000 mammograms a year. “It was a bold decision to replace working equipment,” acknowledged Mike Kimball, radiology director, “but 3D is the future of breast imaging and is the right way to provide our patients with the best service.” 


Today, only 12 percent of breast cancers in the United States are treated with accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI). Breast brachytherapy is a form of APBI that delivers radiation dose from within the breast and tumor cavity using a tiny radioactive pellet of iridium-192. The clinical benefits of this targeted approach to radiation delivery are clear — reduced radiation exposure to healthy tissue, better cosmetic results and fewer side effects, and allowing more future treatment options in the event of a recurrence or new primary cancer.
Value-based Imaging

A recent whitepaper by the Economist Intelligence Unit deems value in the “emerging new currency within health markets.” Since medical imaging represents a fairly large segment of the broader healthcare market and certainly one of the most capital-intensive — even if dwarfed in size by other segments such as its pharmaceutical counterpart — this farsighted statement begs the question, “Would saying value has already emerged as a major new currency within the U.S. medical imaging market be too much of an overstatement?”

Radiation dose management has come to the forefront of healthcare concerns with both patients and providers advocating for measures that will decrease and manage exposure. Research has shown that medical imaging has doubled the public’s exposure to ionizing radiation since the 1980s, and while this statistic includes fluoroscopy, angiography, mammography and standard X-ray, computed tomography (CT) has contributed the majority of the dose increase. 

Big data was the hot topic of conversation at the recent 2014 Annual Meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) in Long Beach, Calif. Most discussions — both in the classrooms and on the exhibit hall floor — revolved around solving enterprise medical image management issues, adapting big data within healthcare practice and research, and understanding the current culture of healthcare enterprise IT. 

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