What’s the world got against anesthesiology lately?
Just two months prior to the annual convening of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) I sense that this medical specialty is under attack on a couple of fronts, attacks that are challenging these physicians’ professional authority and/or their well deserved financial compensation.


In an effort to keep pace with the ever-growing demand for emergency care access, hospitals are turning to models of a freestanding emergency department (ED) to help ease overcrowding at hospital emergency rooms.

Bon Secours Richmond in Virginia is the leading Catholic not-for-profit healthcare system, with four award-winning hospitals, a school of nursing and a medical imaging school. The system also runs numerous community outreach health programs and services. Bon Secours Richmond is one of the city’s largest employers with more than 5,000 employees.

Radiologists across seven health boards in New Zealand are going on strike today for equal pay with radiographers at other health boards.

The University of Virginia Medical Center (U.Va) has upgraded their minimally invasive brain surgery tools by purchasing the Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion from Elekta. With the addition, physicians hope to take advantage of the added ability to develop and deliver complex treatment plans with Perfexion’s pinpoint accuracy that allows larger doses to be concentrated on the target.

Life Healthcare Group in South Africa, one of the largest private hospitals groups in the world, has selected Agfa’s PACS and RIS for it’s newly opened Fourways Hospital in Fourways, South Africa. This is just the first step in the relationship between the two with Life Healthcare scheduled to later introduce the technology throughout other hospitals in the group.
Fourways Hospital will install Agfa’s PACS, IMPAX 6.0 and their latest RIS solution. The hospital is already equipped with other Agfa technologies including CR 85.o and NX software.

Acacia Patent Acquisition Corporation, a subsidiary of the Acacia Technologies group, a leader in technology licensing, announced its acquisition of the rights to a patent portfolio for imaging technology that stabilizes medical images for diagnostic procedures, as part of its efforts to build on the company’s licensing strategy.

Premier Purchasing Partners, L.P., an alliance of hospitals that offers group purchasing and supply chain services, announced today that it renewed a five-year agreement with group affiliate Champs Management Services, which went into effect on July 1, 2006.

According to healthcare industry officials, cutbacks in the Medicare program to freestanding imaging centers could have ill effects on Medicare patients, and possibly force some smaller imaging centers out of business. The American College of Radiology (ACR) estimates that freestanding imaging centers will lose money on 87 percent of all scans they perform on Medicare patients if the cuts remain.

Swissray will present the most comprehensive and advanced package in pediatric radiography. Swissray has closely worked with a renowned children’s hospitals to develop its new Pediatric Imaging Package.

Subscribe to
© Copyright Wainscot Media. All Rights Reserved.
Subscribe Now