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.

Healthcare’s shift away from traditional fee-for-service reimbursement models and toward value-based payments is well under way. Case in point: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that 106 new accountable care organizations (ACOs) have begun operations, bringing the total number of Medicare Shared Savings Program participants to more than 250. ACO growth has also gained a foothold in the private sector, with 428 organizations now operating in 49 states. 

Confidence is an important part of a radiation therapy planning session, especially when a facility is treating as many as 30 patients or more per day. Knowing you are using the best products available and providing patients with the best technology and treatment possible can increase that confidence. When Agnesian Healthcare Cancer Care Services in Fond du Lac, Wis., installed Civco’s Universal Couchtop on its computer tomography (CT) and advanced linear accelerator (linac) platforms, confidence in its treatment technology was boosted in numerous ways.

Today’s remote viewing systems will stimulate changes and challenges in healthcare in a manner similar to what online banking has done for the financial industry. The areas of improvement include safe, secure, remote access from any browser, or ultimately any mobile device. This is the reality of today, and it comes without the need for special applications or image and associated data downloads from virtually any source.

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.

South Jersey Radiology Associates, P.A., (SJRA) is a leading private practice located in the Southern New Jersey corridor near Philadelphia. With nine imaging centers and 45 full- and part-time radiologists, SJRA provides a full complement of medical imaging services — from standard X-rays to the most complex procedures. SJRA also covers three hospitals totaling 500 beds in the Virtua Health System. Bill Muhr, M.D., president and CEO of SJRA, recently spoke about the implementation of the Qualitative Intelligence and Communications System (QICS) offering from peerVue.

The variety of radiation therapy options continues to grow with the development of treatment planning software, imaging systems for guidance, linear accelerators and more. The external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT) market includes many different types of treatment, from traditional whole-body irradiation (WBI) to conformal radiation therapy (3-D CRT) and intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Despite a major decline in 2009, the U.S. radiation therapy market is bouncing back, according to a study published in July by IMV Medical Information Division.[1] Improvements in technologies are helping to drive activity as clinics and hospitals implement advanced techniques to more accurately target and treat cancers.

Beatriz Amendola, M.D., FACR, FASTRO, radiation oncologist, medical director, Innovative Cancer Institute (ICI), decided to work in solo practice in 1999 after moving from Philadelphia to Miami. In Miami, she found there were no privately owned, freestanding facilities offering radiology oncology services to patients. All services were either rendered through a hospital or through a university. That is when Amendola decided to start her own practice, founding the Brachytherapy Center of South Florida in 2002, which is mostly dedicated to the management of early breast cancer and skin cancer using brachytherapy.

In the past 20 years there have been considerable improvements in the treatment of prostate cancer. As it is across all radiation oncology, techniques have evolved from conventional external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), to more targeted therapies that are delivered in fewer visits. One of the latest notable trends in radiotherapy is the emergence of real-time image guidance for intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). For prostate cancer, radiotherapy is often deployed in conjunction with surgery (prostatectomy) or as curative therapy, depending on the stage of disease. As these new techniques emerge, it becomes more important for clinicians to identify which ones work most effectively and for which patients.

The issue of ionizing radiation in medical imaging is often discussed and is a hotly debated topic. Computed tomography (CT) is the major contributor to medical radiation dose exposure and has been vilified in lay and professional press as a danger to those exposed, potentially carcinogenic and most dangerous in children. As a pediatric radiologist, my primary concern is in producing high-quality diagnostic images with radiation dose as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA).
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