Facility Management

Slightly over a year and a half since the opening of the National Oncologic PET Registry, the conclusion has become clear to participants and program managers: Coping with the paperwork involved is not always easy, but it is worthwhile.

One mild day in San Francisco in late September, a few dozen people from all over the globe passed around sample rectal tubes, boxes of various bowel preparations, and other clinical paraphernalia. The props were part of a hands-on virtual colonoscopy workshop with instructor Dr. Judy Yee, an expert in the blossoming technique.

The growing cost of funding healthcare means that budgets must be managed carefully. Clinicians and radiologists are under increasing pressure from payers to economize. At the same time, many specialties face a shortage of trained healthcare professionals. This is creating room for others to step in and manage what was traditionally regarded as another professional's turf.

An overwhelming majority of the audience at an RSNA special focus session Thursday voted in favor of keeping up the efforts to get FDA approval for the use of contrast ultrasound for general radiology applications.

Merge Healthcare has become the first U.S. RIS/PACS company to enter the fast-growing teleradiology market, offering a service that gives U.S.-based radiologists consultation interpretations provided by radiologists based in India.

Multislice CT is a promising tool for autopsy, and it’s likely that scanners will eventually be installed in many of the major medical examiner’s offices around the country. Who will read these cases remains to be seen, however, according to researchers from the University of Maryland Medical Center.

An abbreviated field-of-view can lead to a 48% cut in radiation dose for CT pulmonary embolism exams and 96% dose reduction compared to full-view 64-slice CT triple rule-out without affecting the diagnostic sensitivity of either procedure.

Radiology is at a crossroads, according to three prominent radiologists who have followed the specialty’s digital revolution and evolution of practice. Their message was characterized by the RSNA as “a warning and a challenge.”

In keeping with family tradition, my niece has entered the radiology business. She is getting ready for her first RSNA meeting and asked me, “As a potential customer, what would you want to see or hear at our booth this year?”

RadNet shows 3Q growthFonar losses shrinkViztek prepares billing module for RSNA

Imaging advocates fear the adoption of a bundled approach to Medicare reimbursement for contrast media, radiopharmaceuticals, and the technical component of medical imaging could lead to substantial payment cuts from the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System.

Independent diagnostic testing facilities have only until the end of the year to dissolve imaging equipment leasing arrangements with referring physicians to comply with new rules in the 2008 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule that becomes effective Jan. 1.

Although stricken by shortfalls in revenue and net during the third quarter, Alliance Imaging has entered into a definitive agreement to buy New England Health Enterprises Business Trust. NEHE’s seven imaging centers, which provide MR and CT, and its mobile MR operation will expand Alliance’s current holdings of 470 diagnostic imaging systems. Of these systems, 74 are located in hospitals or clinics.

Because modern digital detectors can be tuned to be more efficient than screen-film systems, they automatically lower the radiation dose to the patient while maintaining the image quality radiologists crave.

MR detects subtle damage in brain trauma patientsCT or x-ray based studies are typically chosen to evaluate trauma patients. But patients with brain injuries, even slight ones, may be examined more thoroughly with MR.Siemens set to acquire Dade Behring Alliance Imaging 3Q slips, bids for imaging chainIDC lands Chile contract Merge buys time to tradeAmicas revenues rise

Persuading cash-strapped hospitals to commit resources for a clinical interventional radiology service may seem a hard sell. But interventional radiologists can make a strong case by concentrating on economics, especially now that more and more hospitals in Europe will be adopting the flat-rate reimbursement system based on diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) used in the U.S.

The increasing use of multislice CT has raised questions about patients' rising radiation burden. But CT can-and should-be a low-dose modality, according to Prof. Dr. Willi Kalender, director of the Institute of Medical Physics at the University of Erlangen in Germany.

This year has been a miserable one for the makers of PET/CT units, so miserable that one vendor-Hitachi Medical Systems of America-has stopped marketing its hybrid scanners. Others are struggling under the weight of a plunge in sales of some 30% compared with the same periods last year.

My physician friend "Bob" recently got fed up with his traditional family medicine practice and dropped out. He didn't quit medicine but decided to buck the rules and reimbursement schedules of third-party payers and create a boutique medical practice.

Breast MR is approaching celebrity status. A raft of expert opinions, notably from the American Cancer Society, has established MR in public and professional minds as a leading means to diagnose cancer among patients at high risk and possibly even among patients in the general population.

In the Promised Land of personalized medicine, roulette-style drug selection is a thing of the past. Eschewing delivery by trial and error, physicians prescribe drugs precisely tailored to a patient's genetic code. Imaging plays a heroic role in targeting the best therapy and monitoring response. Disease is foreseen years ahead of time, when perhaps it can be stopped in its tracks.

A spate of European studies within the last year contributes to the evidence that MRI may soon replace scintigraphy and x-ray to detect bony metastases and soft-tissue involvement.

Representatives of the Access to Medical Imaging Coalition worried that freestanding outpatient imaging was heading toward disaster when they arrived at the White House on Sept. 10 to lobby for support from the Bush administration.

Coronary CT angiography is one of the most promising new applications of CT technology. Despite the increasing number of detectors in CT scanners, however, coronary CT imaging had not solved the key issue: dealing with a structure that is in almost constant motion. That is, until the advent of dual source CT.

Integration of medical informatics systems continues to penetrate deeper into the hospital enterprise, driven by a search for increased efficiencies and better patient care-all on a tight budget. While the integration of radiology information systems and PACS occurs at the radiology department level, the convergence of healthcare informatics reaching across departments and entire enterprises has begun. Orthopedic and women's clinics, cancer and cardiac imaging centers are all adopting digital modalities and attendant support systems.

Barely three years after the introduction of 64-slice CT, Toshiba America Medical Systems will ask the market at this year's RSNA meeting to embrace scanners capable of 256 slices. Siemens Medical Solutions will introduce a 128-slice scanner just one year after releasing its dual-beam CT. Philips will tout newly upgradable CT scanners, and GE Healthcare will demonstrate image quality enhancements that company executives say will deliver soft-tissue contrast similar to that found with MR.

An Arizona woman will always remember the incident that was nearly as frightening as learning that she had cancer. The incident was being left inside a PET/CT scanner after the imaging center was locked up and staff had gone for the day.

In keeping with family tradition, my niece has entered the radiology business. She is getting ready for her first RSNA meeting, and one day she asked me, “As a potential customer, what would you want to see or hear at our booth this year?” Her question, simple as it seemed, was hard to answer.

The Deficit Reduction Act has undercut reimbursements for outpatient centers, ripening the market for consolidation -- and RadNet has been harvesting. The company last week acquired Liberty Pacific MRI of Encino for $2.8 million, the fourth California imaging center RadNet has bought in little more than a month.

The worst effects from the Deficit Reduction Act may be over, according to GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt. But Pierre-Jean Sivignon, chief financial officer of Koninklijke Philips Electronics, has some reservations.