In today’s complex healthcare landscape, protecting sensitive patient information is a top priority. To that end, industry regulations are increasing and complying with HIPAA and HITECH regulations is becoming more costly, even as reimbursement rates drop.

Despite its first commercial appearance in the late 1970s, positron emission tomograpnhy (PET) did not begin gaining widespread acceptance as a viable clinical technology until the mid-1990s. This was after it gained approval for reimbursement and radiopharmaceuticals for PET became more widely available.

As imaging modalities developed in the past 50 years — and ancillary products and services with them — colleagues who shared an interest in specific areas began to form groups to address the needs of their particular niches. Their focus included segments such as radiation oncology, nuclear imaging, women’s health, administration and informatics.

July 18, 2011 – Driving new technologies that will help expand the availability of MRI scanners beyond the hospital to smaller clinic settings, GE Global Research, the technology development arm for the General Electric Company, and the Mayo Clinic have received a five-year, $5.7 million grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They will jointly conduct research to understand design and application issues involved in the use of a dedicated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scanner to image for a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders such as stroke, Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, traumatic brain disorder (TBI), depression and autism.  

July 18, 2011 —Cardinal Health opened The Center for the Advancement of Molecular Imaging on Monday in Phoenix. The Center is a new, first-of-its-kind collaboration laboratory that will expedite the development of nuclear imaging agents that treat complex diseases like cancer, heart disease and neurological disorders.


SIIM documented and archived a large amount of historical information about its organization and segments of the medical imaging industry. These include reminiscences from a founding member, Joseph N. Gitlin, DPH, FSIIM, associate professor of radiology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, which provide an inside look at important milestones, as Gitlin’s career often was interwoven with developments in the industry.

July 18, 2011 – MedQuist Holdings Inc., a provider of integrated clinical documentation solutions for the United States healthcare system, announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire M*Modal and its advanced Speech Understanding technology for total consideration of $130 million. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, and is expected to close prior to the end of the third quarter of 2011.

July 18, 2011 – Christian Medical College & Hospital (CMC) in Ludhiana, Ind., is the site of the first Elekta Compact linear accelerator in the world to be field-upgraded to an MLCi2-equipped Elekta Compact, completing the transformation in less than a week. MLCi2 shapes treatment beams, enabling doctors to provide more accurate delivery to the target while limiting radiation exposure to surrounding structures.


A lot has happened in medical imaging during the past 50 years, and many of the vendor firms that play a leading role in the imaging industry today have witnessed and helped shape the evolution of the field to attain its place of prominence. As Imaging Technology News marks its 50th anniversary, we asked a group of industry leaders to look back and provide their perspective on the seminal events and trends during the past half-century.

From my observations, one of the most challenging “best practices” is standardization. In radiology, standardization can be seen in modification to dictation and/or reporting style.
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