There are several reasons quoted when health-imaging professionals are asked why they pursue PACS administration certification such as the ones provided by the ABII and PARCA organizations. Some people just like the sense of accomplishment, which coincides with reaching a milestone requiring a lot of hard work, similar to finishing a marathon for a runner, and are happy to have the certificate on the wall in their office. Some are looking for career advancement, a raise or looking to change jobs and want to make sure that their credentials stand out amongst other candidates.

Computer-aided detection (CAD) is a valuable tool in the radiologist’s armamentarium. However, the path of technological advancement has not been without bumps in the road. Issues surrounding “the doubt” have included the effect upon false positive rates, callbacks, biopsy rates, overall detection rates, clinical decision-making and patient outcomes. For the many studies supporting the efficacy of CAD applications for breast, lung and colon, there are many others that have produced unfavorable results, casting a continued shadow of doubt over its utility.

In healthcare there is a lot of interoperability missing. This is rooted in how data capture has been done and how data collection from legacy systems has been integrated. The true value for using service-oriented architecture (SOA) is in the sense that you can build out live and standards-based Web services that can make the integration process happen.