At the Society of Breast Imaging (SBI)/American College of Radiology (ACR) 2019 Symposium, Rasu Shrestha, M.D., MBA, chief strategy officer for Atrium Health, discusses his new role with Atrium, the hype cycle of artificial intelligence (AI) and the key elements of getting AI in radiology — and in healthcare — right.

Read the article "Atrium Health Debuts Amazon Alexa Skill to Help Patients Access Medical Care"

Listen to the podcast Is Artificial Intelligence The Doom of Radiology?, a discussion with Shrestha.

Vital Images has developed a strategy that allows its customers to capture revenues that are otherwise missed while building the infrastructure for the future. In an interview with itnTV, Vital Images executives Larry Sitka and Geoffrey Clemmons describe how the company has reconciled this vision of the future with near-term realities.

ITN Editor Dave Fornell takes a tour of some of the most interesting new medical imaging technologies displayed on the expo floor at the 2018 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting. The video includes new technologies for fetal ultrasound, CT, MRI, mobile DR X-ray, a new generation of fluoroscopy systems, MRI contrast mapping to better identify tumors, and a new technique to create moving X-ray images from standard DR imaging.

Watch the related VIDEO: Editor’s Choice of the Most Innovative New Artificial Intelligence Technologies at RSNA 2018. This inlcudes a tour of some of the recently FDA-cleared AI technologies for medical imaging at RSNA 2018. 

GE Healthcare goes beyond core equipment maintenance to help clients solve some of their most important asset and clinical performance challenges through digital solutions.

At RSNA 2018, GE launched a new brand that covers AI. The company showed several works-in-progress -- a critical care suite of algorithms and experimental applications for brain MR. Each is being built on GE's Edison Platform.

William Pinsky, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist and CEO of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG), and Mandeep Mehra, M.D., medical director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Heart and Vascular Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, explain the U.S. doctor shortage and how foreign doctors help fill the gap.

According to 2017 data provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), 40 percent of interventional cardiologists, 30 percent of cardiovascular disease specialists, and 26 percent of pediatric cardiologists in the United States are international medical graduates (IMGs). However, as the physician shortage continues to impact primary care doctors, psychiatrists, OB/GYNs, among others, the U.S. also expects to see a shortage of cardiologists within the next 10 years, according to a spotlight cardiology study issued by the professional services firm PYA, which specialized in healthcare consulting.

The interview was shot at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 2019 meeting.

Deborah Levine, M.D., professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and vice chair for academic affairs in the Department of Radiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, describes scenarios where magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could be more useful than ultrasound in issues with the female pelvis.

Magid Awadalla, MBBS, is an advanced cardiac imaging research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been involved in an imaging study of cardiac changes from photon radiotherapy in breast cancer patients using serial cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The radiotherapy beams used to treat breast cancer pass close to the neighboring heart, which can cause cardiac cell damage leading to issues like heart failure later on. He spoke on the topic of cardio-oncology at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 2019 meeting.

As a VNA, GE Healthcare Centricity Clinical Archive weaves together data from many different sources and systems. The cloud-based system, shown at RSNA 2018, offers analytics that can help physicians and administrators make decisions about the many types of data contained in this VNA, just as it can help make the VNA more efficient. 

Related content:

Technology Report: Enterprise Imaging 2018

Mike Ciancio, imaging systems administrator at CarolinaEast Health System in North Carolina, explains how newer enterprising imaging software can improve how the backend administration of radiology PACS administration. He spoke at the 2019 Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society at (HIMSS) conference.

Ciancio said newer cloud-based systems allow for easier IT management of the backend of a PACS or enterprise imaging system.

Look through a photo gallery of other new technologies at HIMSS19. 

Find news and videos from HIMSS 2019.

Cree Gaskin, M.D., professor, vice chair and associate chief medical officer, University of Virginia Health System, explains how new technology can be used to improve radiology reports without additional workload. His health system uses a new generation integrated RIS/PACS system that allows URL links and new graphical data presentations to be embedded into radiology reports to make them more interactive. This information can include quantifications, key images from the exam, access to full datasets, 3-D reconstructions and ability to immediately link to prior exams. He spoke is sessions on this topic at the 2019 Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) conference.

Look through a photo gallery of other new technologies at HIMSS19. 

Find news and videos from HIMSS 2019.

This is an example of a 3-D printed pelvis that had multiple hip fractures and a second printed pelvis is from a post surgical repair CT scan, showing the pins and plates in pink. This was on display at the GE Healthcare booth at the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) 2019 conference. The files for printing were created from the CT datasets using the AW Advanced Visualization software.

Look through a photo gallery of other new technologies at HIMSS19. 

Find news and videos from HIMSS 2019.

This is a virtual heart with the same electrophysiology characteristics as the real patient unveiled by Siemens at the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) 2019 annual meeting in February. This "digital twin" technology is in development and will be able to create virtual, digital organs from a patient’s medical imnaging and other physiological data. In this case, the model was created using an ECG, MRI scan and other clinical data. It was shown as a way to help optimize cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) lead placement. CRT currently has a 30 percent nonresponder rate, which is mainly due to the placement of leads. This model allows virtual placement of the leads In various locations to test response prior to the implantation procedure. The green dot shows the location of the virtual lead. Siemens said the technology also might have applications for testing virtual ablations strategies to save procedure time when the patient is in the EP lab. 

Read more about the digital twin technology.

Look through a photo gallery of other new technologies at HIMSS19. 

Find news and videos from HIMSS 2019.

Steve Holloway, principal analyst and company director for the healthcare market research firm Signify Research, explains the key trends he is seeing in radiology enterprise imaging systems. He spoke to ITN at the 2019 Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society at (HIMSS) conference.  

Additional HIMSS 2019 coverage.

Watch the RSNA 2018 VIDEO: Technology Report — Enterprise Imaging

This is an example of an arterial venous malformation (AVM) in the brain imaged on a Canon Alphenix Alpha angiography system. It shjows a contrast injection highlighting the vessels, which have been color coded to show the position of the veins and arteries involved in this vascular defect. 

Read more about advances in angiography imaging systems. 

ITN Contributing Editor Greg Freiherr discusses Fujifilm's AI-enabled Platform REiLI, the benefits of an open AI platform, and how this impacts radiologists' workflow and patient outcomes with FUJIFILM Medical Systems U.S.A., Inc. Vice President of Medical Informatics, Bill Lacy. 

Missed your chance for a REiLI demo at RSNA?  Visit Fujifilm's booth #4159 at HIMSS February 12–14, 2019. 

Related content:

Fujifilm Collaborates With Lunit on AI Pilot Project

RSNA 2018 Sunday – Improving, Not Replacing

Gregory Videtic, M.D., staff physician in radiation oncology at the Cleveland Clinic, and David Johnstone, M.D., professor of surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin, discuss the factors in deciding how to treat patients with marginally operable non-small cell lung cancer at the 2018 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting.

ITN Contributing Editor Greg Freiherr speaks with Guerbet Chief Commercial Officer David Hale about the latest advanced digital solutions the company was showing at RSNA 2018.

In Artificial Intelligence 2018: What Radiologists Need to Know About AI, ITN Contributing Editor Greg Freiherr offers an overview of artificial intelligence (AI) advances at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2018 annual meeting.

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