The radiology landscape is pocked with cyber mines. And it’s getting worse. Legacy imaging systems are connected to picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), which are being linked to electronic medical record (EMR) systems and best of breed IT systems, as hospitals increasingly move to enterprise imaging. These make tempting targets for hackers. And the worsening situation is being caused by the best intentions.

The implementation of electronic health records (EHR) has created an expectation that all patient data, including images, should be available in one location. Today, reports describing images are not enough, as many referring physicians want to see the images, and many use them to help guide therapies. This has caused an increased demand to exchange medical images in the various departments of healthcare settings. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines radiographic/fluoroscopy (R/F) as a type of medical imaging that shows a continuous X-ray image on a monitor, much like an X-ray movie. During a fluoroscopy procedure, an X-ray beam is passed through the body. The image is transmitted to a monitor so the movement of a body part or of an instrument or contrast agent through the body can be seen in detail.