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From The CEO

The Industrial-strength Imaging Executive

by Curtis Kauffman-Pickelle

Today’s medical-imaging profession is definitely not for the fragile and weak-kneed among our colleagues. It is becoming increasingly clear that navigating the constant changes and challenges that face the practice of radiology today will be the ultimate test of tenacity, perseverance, and creativity. We’re in the playoffs now, and the game is moving to the big-time arena—where the margin for error is nil.

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Finger in the Wind

by Cheryl Proval

Physicians are in a real bind as fee-for-service reimbursement falls under attack and alternative payment methods (such as bundling and capitation) gain traction in Washington, DC. As of June 18, Medicare Part B claims were being processed with the 21.3% cut mandated by the sustainable growth rate’s formula, and House Democrats demanded legislation on jobs before they would pass the Senate bill to reverse the cut.

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Consulting and Marketing Services

We provide strategic business and marketing expertise to assist in the growth of your medical imaging enterprise.

Our clients include radiology practices, imaging centers, and hospitals in large and small markets across the country.

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July 20, 2010 11am EST

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Keep Your Hospital Relationships Healthy: Strategies for Every Practice

Presenters:

Randy Roat, CHBME, VP of Radiology, MMP, and George Ehrhardt, CPA, Director, Practice Management, MMP

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Medical Management Professionals, Inc.

 

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RIS to the Rescue | Strategies for Driving Revenue, Productivity and Profitability

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Advanced Visualization | Next-generation Architectures

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Visage Imaging

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Debunking the Primary Myths of PACS

Radinformatics | Planning Portal | July 26, 2010

The road to PACS perfection is paved with distractions and pitfalls, Paul Chang, MD, FSIIM, says. Chang is professor of radiology, vice chair of radiology informatics, and medical director of enterprise imaging at University of Chicago Medical Center in Illinois. During the 2010 Dwyer Lecture, “The Role of Imaging Informatics in the Next Generation of EMR/EHR,” presented June 4, 2010, at the meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chang used the experiences of other industries to debunk common PACS myths—and to illuminate next-generation requirements for imaging.

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Radiologue: Whole-system Communications for Radiology

Radinformatics | Enterprise Trooper | July 26, 2010

The San Francisco General Hospital/University of California–San Francisco Department of Radiology has created a groundbreaking communications tool called Radiologue. Alexander V. Rybkin, MD, a radiologist in that department, described the system in “A Web-based Flexible Communication System in Radiology,” which he presented in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 5, 2010, at the annual meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine.

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Sparking the Storage and Sharing Revolution: Symantec Health’s Lori Wright

ImagingBiz Newsletter | A Better Mousetrap | July 14, 2010

Radiology has a storage problem, to put it lightly: Even as the data associated with a single cross-sectional imaging study increase dramatically, HIPAA requirements to ensure patient privacy remain as stringent as ever.

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Beyond the Basics: Next-generation Radiology Reports

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Quality | July 14, 2010

At Shields Health Care Group (SHCG), an outpatient high-end imaging provider headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts, staying ahead of the technology curve has been a clearly defined business initiative from the beginning.

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New Radiology-department Solution Opens New Doors

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | July 14, 2010

Integration has been a buzzword in the radiology community for some time, and the team at Valhalla, New York-based Westchester Medical Center (WMC) knows why.

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Have RIS/PACS, Will Travel

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | June 16, 2010

For over thirty years, Radiation Physics Inc (Beltsville, Maryland) has been providing mobile imaging services to the Baltimore and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas, serving long-term–care and assisted-living clients, as well as prisons and private residences.

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Executing the Digital Transformation

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | May 17, 2010

When Saint Michael’s Medical Center (SMMC), Newark, New Jersey, was acquired by Catholic Health East in 2009, the organization had some catching up to do in the IT department

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Crystal Ball: Toward True Enterprise Image Management

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | April 12, 2010

As the potential role of informatics in transforming health care gains national attention, how are IT tools for imaging and image management evolving to improve clinical efficiency and bolster quality of care?

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Improving Health Care: There Are Apps for That

Radinformatics | Heavy Traffic | April 07, 2010

If Dan Hesse had told you, 25 years ago, that you’d be reviewing studies, monitoring patients…

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Academic PACS: It’s Not Elementary, Watson

Radinformatics | Planning Portal | April 07, 2010

In the late 1990s, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, implemented its first PACS

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UPMC’s Rasu Shrestha, MD, MBA:  Improving the Value Proposition of Imaging Informatics

Radinformatics | Enterprise Trooper | April 07, 2010

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), with 20 affiliated hospitals and 30 imaging centers in western Pennsylvania, could be seen as ground zero in the effort to digitize medicine.

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Enterprise Image Management: Bringing Cardiology Into the Fold

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | March 16, 2010

Harris County Hospital District (HCHD) is the public health-care system for the nation’s third most populous county (Harris County, Texas); with 44 locations, it generates 420,000 radiology procedures and 70,000 cardiology procedures each year.

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Building the Fully Loaded HIE: Images on Board

Radiology Business Journal | Feature | February 24, 2010

With a health IT stimulus package valued at $19 billion1 in play, one of the least controversial subjects in the health-reform debate is the potential of health information exchanges (HIEs) to lower health care costs while improving efficiency and quality of care.

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High Hurdles for HITECH Dollars

Radiology Business Journal | Health IT Policy | February 24, 2010

The indefinite path to qualifying for Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act funds just came into greater focus, but it’s not to everyone’s liking.

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HIE on the Horizon

Radiology Business Journal | NONE | February 24, 2010

In an attempt to aggregate health information beyond the proprietary realm of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, Frank C. Clark, PhD, MUSC’s vice president of IT and CIO, currently is spearheading efforts to partner with several other health care organizations in the area to form a health information exchange (HIE).

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Interoperability: An Open-source Toolkit

Radiology Business Journal | Feature | February 24, 2010

Within radiology, interoperability and sharing information are among our most challenging and important tasks.

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The CIO Perspective: Issues in Image Management

Radiology Business Journal | Feature | February 24, 2010

Gone are the days when radiology managed image data in a silo: CIOs are engaged in imaging informatics.

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Leveraging IT for Better Service

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | February 15, 2010

Don Trexler, CEO of Baton Rouge Radiology Group (BRRG) in Louisiana, wants his practice to be different from a typical imaging group.

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Marooned on Level 3: Leverage IT to Improve Reporting

Radinformatics | Destination Digital | January 10, 2010

In a December 2 session at RSNA 2009 in Chicago, Illinois, on using next-generation health care IT to improve radiology, David Avrin, MD, PhD, radiologist at the University of California–San Francisco Medical Center, opened with a comment made to him by one of his hospital administrators

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Federated-model HIE Connects 16 Unaffiliated Hospitals

Radinformatics | Enterprise Trooper | January 10, 2010

When the 16 hospitals of the Western North Carolina Health Network (WNCHN) sat down to create a federated model for a health information exchange (HIE) four years ago, they could find no examples of unaffiliated institutions sharing health data, so WNCHN essentially began with a tabula rasa.

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Catching Up With the Future: The Radiology of Tomorrow

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Enterprise View | December 22, 2009

The future is here—it just hasn’t made it to radiology yet.

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Toward True Globalization: The Air Force and PACS

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | December 22, 2009

Sharing images across any health care enterprise represents a challenge, but doing so across the Pacific Rim was the dilemma faced in 2003 by the US Air Force.

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Extending Advanced Visualization Across Multiple Departments

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Enterprise View | November 18, 2009

Among the virtues of thin-client 3D advanced visualization are ease and economy of deployment across an enterprise.

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Software Allows Virtual PET/MRI Fusion

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Revenue Track | November 18, 2009

It was a difficult, but not uncommon, neuroradiology case: A patient suffered seizures, but had, a year before, been cleared of the possibility of epilepsy by a radiologist looking at an MRI study of the patient’s brain.

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The Transformational Effects of Informatics on the Practice of Radiology: A Roundtable Discussion

Radinformatics | Feature | November 09, 2009

On October 6, 2009, four physicians gathered in Stamford, Connecticut, to participate in a discussion moderated by Cheryl Proval, Radinformatics.com editorial director.

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State of the Technology: Geoffrey Rubin, MD, on 3D Visualization

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Enterprise View | October 14, 2009

As CT technology continues to advance and the number of slices in a given exam grows exponentially.

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At the Intersection of Radiology and the EHR

Radiology Business Journal | Feature | October 01, 2009

A tight interface between electronic patient records and PACS does more than further the ARRA objective of improving the quality of health care; it also has significant medicolegal and economic implications

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Enterprise Visualization: The CIO Story

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Enterprise View | September 10, 2009

When contemplating implementation of an enterprise-wide advanced visualization solution, expect to hear many concerns voiced by various stakeholders—and look for the CIO’s voice to be front and center among them.

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RIS Migration at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | August 18, 2009

It’s as extreme a transition as any IT professional could imagine: moving from a remotely hosted RIS to a fully integrated RIS/PACS over the course of just a few short months.

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View From the Podium: Stanford MDCT Face-Off

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Enterprise View | July 15, 2009

By stipulation, there were to be no winners when eight vendors of advanced imaging workstations and their physician teams competed in the Seventh Annual Original Workstation Face-off

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PACS Nirvana: University Radiology’s Reporting-driven Workflow

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | July 15, 2009

Ever since digital imaging liberated radiologists from the site of image acquisition.

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Trends and Tactics for IT Spending

Radiology Business Journal | Strategic Planning | July 01, 2009

HIMSS: Operating expenses exceed capital costs.

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Storage Dilemmas in the MDCT World

Radiology Business Journal | Feature | July 01, 2009

Beware the seven myths of PACS storage.

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Improving the Hospital-practice IT Interface

Radiology Business Journal | The Bottom Line | July 01, 2009

A great place to begin improving the interoperability of health care informatics is where the radiology practice and the hospital intersect

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Can Health Informatics Reduce Health Care Costs?

Radinformatics | Heavy Traffic | June 15, 2009

The answer to that question may appear obvious to imaging informatics professionals.

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Visage Imaging CEO David Chambers: On the Future of Health Care IT

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Enterprise View | June 15, 2009

Earlier this year, Pro Medicus Ltd., the Australia-based RIS provider, acquired Visage Imaging.

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In the Navy: The DoD and the Future of PACS

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | June 15, 2009

The US Navy deployed its first PACS-a military-specified system with limited functionality-in 1996.

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A Virtual Coup: The Server Room of the Future

Radinformatics | Feature | May 15, 2009

The server requirements of any modern hospital are daunting.

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Enterprise Visualization in the Pediatric Environment

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Enterprise View | May 15, 2009

The worst advanced visualization system in the world for a pediatric setting is one wherein the only way that referring physicians from across the organization can see 3D reconstructions of diagnostic images is by physically visiting a radiologist at his or her workstation.

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ARRA Opportunities and Risks

Radiology Business Journal | Strategic Planning | May 01, 2009

More is unknown than known about how the $19.2 billion allocated to health IT by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) will be awarded and who will be eligible to receive funds.

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Radiology and the Economic Stimulus Act

Radiology Business Journal | The Bottom Line | May 01, 2009

The authors believe that the ARRA largely leaves the specialty out in the cold

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Hosted RIS: An Efficient Alternative

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | April 15, 2009

When Vanderbilt Imaging Services LLC, the freestanding outpatient radiology practice associated with Vanderbilt Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn, opened its doors in 1999, the center decided to implement an alternative to the traditional RIS configuration: a hosted RIS.

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Thin-client Enterprise Visualization: A Top-down View

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Enterprise View | April 15, 2009

Say that Amazon.com operated using a thick-client model (it doesn’t, but pretend it does for argument’s sake).

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Reinventing Medical Imaging

ImagingBiz Newsletter | The Big Picture | April 15, 2009

I recently attended a very interesting and intellectually stimulating conference for top leaders in the field of outpatient imaging services.

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Masters of Manipulation

Radiology Business Journal | Feature | March 15, 2009

Radiologists and vendors race to grasp and improve the tools of advanced visualization as imaging modalities churn out ever more information

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Is Custom Reporting Difficult?

Radiology Business Journal | NONE | March 01, 2009

Completing a customized report using RIS data-mining software (or some other system) is simply a matter of learning a little technology

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Data Mining: Imaging Executives Crunch the Numbers

Radiology Business Journal | Feature | March 01, 2009

RIS data, keyed to billing, can be analyzed to improve competitive capability and pare inefficiency to the nub

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Through Thick and Thin: The MGH Search for a 3D Solution

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Reading Room | February 15, 2009

Imagine that you run a large city, and that up until now, the sole transportation available has been buses—but with the price of automobiles coming down, citizens suddenly want to drive cars.

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Maximizing RIS Potential

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | February 15, 2009

The IT needs of today’s radiology practices are ever evolving, and investing in the latest information solutions can be vital to the survival of a business in an increasingly cost-focused marketplace.

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The Economic Advantages of Thin-client Technology

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Reading Room | January 15, 2009

Clear clinical benefits have resulted from the widespread adoption of multidetector CT (MDCT) technology, as well as from the use of advanced, contrast-enhanced, and functional MRI applications.

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Change Management: Influencing the Uneasy Alliance Between Man and Machine

Radinformatics | Planning Portal | November 15, 2008

No one faces a constantly changing landscape more than the CIO at a large health care institution.

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How I Do It: Using 3D MRI to Identify High-risk Vascular Disease

Radinformatics | The Virtuoso | November 15, 2008

Stroke and heart attack are major killers, not only in the Western world but, increasingly, throughout the developing industrial nations.

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IT’s Cross-functional Business Agenda

Radinformatics | Data Central | November 15, 2008

Increasingly, radiology-practice CIOs and their hospital counterparts are being called on to interact with leadership across the organization to help drive strategic initiatives.

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PACS/RIS Replacement: Cheating the Big Bang

Radinformatics | The Daily Grind | November 15, 2008

Replacing technology is always nerve-wracking, but it is particularly volatile when the systems being replaced are a PACS and a RIS, systems at the heart of daily function for radiology departments and hospitals.

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When Worlds Collide: Integrating Radiology and Cardiology Imaging

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | November 15, 2008

On August 24, 2008, Good Samaritan Hospital, Vincennes, Ind, became the first site in the country to go live with integration between the Synapse PACS from FUJIFILM Medical Systems USA Inc, Stamford, Conn.

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Patricia Whelan, MHA, CIO: Leading Shield’s E-strategy Charge

ImagingBiz Newsletter | CXO Files | October 15, 2008

Armed with a master’s degree in health administration from Ohio State, Patricia Whelan, MHA, went to work for Ohio State Medical Center in 1993.

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Information Theft: How to Prevent It

Radinformatics | Data Central | September 15, 2008

What do hospital administrators and their CIOs fear above all else?

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Avoiding Nightmare PACS Outages

Radinformatics | The Daily Grind | September 15, 2008

Preparation is the difference between unexpected PACS downtime and a nightmare, Michael D. Toland told his audience in Seattle on May 17 at the 2008 annual meeting of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine.

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Long-term Data Management and Migration for PACS

Radinformatics | Destination Digital | September 15, 2008

PACS data migration is so important that every PACS acquisition should include a plan for outbound migration at the end of that system’s life.

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How I Do It: Maximizing Efficiency in CTA Interpretation

Radinformatics | The Virtuoso | September 15, 2008

They’re coming, and in many hospitals, they have already arrived: multidetector CT (MDCT), CT angiography (CTA), and advanced 3D imaging.

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Advance Preparation Is Key to Smooth Migration

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | August 15, 2008

When John Mowry, digital imaging manager at Cook’s Children’s Health Care System, Fort Worth, Tex, decided to switch from his legacy PACS to a thin-client, Web-based model, he faced a particularly daunting migration situation.

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Role of the Practice CIO

Radiology Business Journal | NONE | June 15, 2008

The adoption of PACS by radiology practices has added a new member to their executive committees: the CIO.

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Leverage PACS IT Support to Grow Referrals

Radinformatics | Planning Portal | May 15, 2008

While radiology practices and imaging center operators spend heavily on marketing liaisons to help cement favorable referral patterns, few understand the role that hands-on PACS IT support can play.

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My PET/CT Experience: Adding a New Modality to PACS

Radinformatics | The Daily Grind | May 15, 2008

It was a Tuesday afternoon when I received the call. The new PET/CT scanner was installed, and acceptance testing was about to begin, but my medical physicist informed me that PACS was not listed as a destination. 

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Grow Your Multisite Business With a Single Sign-on Solution

Radinformatics | Enterprise Trooper | May 15, 2008

Six months ago, Jesse Salen, vice president of sales and technology for Online Radiology Medical Group (ORMG), Riverside, Calif, found himself in a situation familiar to many radiology practices.

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Intersociety Conference Urges Adoption of Structured Reports

Radinformatics | Dashboard Confessions | May 15, 2008

Aside from referrers’ clear-cut preference for structured reports, radiologists have added cause to adopt the use of structured reporting.

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A CIO at the Table

Radinformatics | Heavy Traffic | May 15, 2008

Most radiology practices have not invited their CIOs onto the executive committee, but a recent survey from the Center for CIO Leadership suggests that it may be time to set another place at the table.

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Advanced Visualization: A Do-it-yourself Approach

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | May 15, 2008

With three-dimensional and other advanced visualization tools being used for a greater share of CT and other imaging studies.

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In-house vs Outsource for 3D: A Questionnaire for Determining the Breakeven Point

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Reading Room | April 15, 2008

It’s coming. In many hospitals, it has already arrived. We’re talking about multidetector CT (MDCT), CT angiography, and advanced 3D imaging.

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Enterprise PACS: A Good Thing for Radiology?

Radiology Business Journal | Feature | March 15, 2008

PACS took 20 years to mature as a technology in radiology, and it is a necessity today for cost-effective, productive imaging operations.

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Get on Board With Virtualized Servers

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | March 15, 2008

As any PACS administrator can attest, the cost of advanced imaging technology is higher than the price of a new CT or PET scanner.

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The 3D Imaging Lab:In-house or Outsource?

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Reading Room | March 15, 2008

Staying abreast with (or, better yet, staying ahead of) the imaging-technology curve clearly follows a clinical imperative.

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Look, No Hands: Reports Go Directly to Referrer EMRs

Radinformatics | Heavy Traffic | February 15, 2008

John Griffith, CIO of Epic Imaging, Portland, Ore, says, “They asked us for it, and we had to come up with a solution.”

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Better Than Aspirin: Modality Testing and Troubleshooting

Radinformatics | Destination Digital | February 15, 2008

Why does it typically take several days to get a new modality up and running, from a connectivity perspective?

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CIIP Update: Getting Certified Got Easier

Radinformatics | The Daily Grind | February 15, 2008

There’s no single textbook, and no specified curriculum.

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When Disaster Means No Recovery

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | January 15, 2008

Does turning to a PACS vendor for disaster archiving add certainty and ease to the recovery process when a mishap occurs and images must be retrieved or a PACS database must be reestablished? One New York hospital’s radiology department thought so.

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College, 3D Lab Partner in Web-based Advanced Visualization Training

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Quality | January 15, 2008

The nation’s first curriculum-based program for volumetric imaging began as do many collaborations between local businesses and technical colleges.

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Wake Radiology Reduces Risk with Tier II+ Data Center

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | November 15, 2007

In the fall of 2005, 58-member Wake Radiology found itself feeling vulnerable.

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Achieving Return on a Dedicated 3D Service

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Legislative Report | November 15, 2007

A dedicated 3D service can improve patient care and enhance operational efficiency.

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IT as Gatekeeper: Who’s on PACS?

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | October 15, 2007

Allowing physicians, whether they are referrers or outside specialists, access to an outpatient radiology practice’s PACS is a subject that is being discussed with increasing frequency among CIOs.

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Radia Homogenizes Client Base with Homegrown Worklist

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Radinformatics | September 15, 2007

The PACS has come a long way since its inception, enabling communications among all imaging stakeholders in a hospital or health system.

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PACS Administrator Success Indicators

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Legislative Report | September 15, 2007

What does it take to be a successful PACS administrator? As we work with clients across the country, we are commonly asked this question.

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Quick Tips to Maximize your PACS Site Visit

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Legislative Report | July 15, 2007

Selecting a PACS vendor is a long process requiring a significant amount of due diligence.

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Data and Destiny: A Conversation with Commissure CEO Michael Mardini

ImagingBiz Newsletter | Utilization Metrics | June 12, 2007

The mantra for practice management in the post-DRA era is data management, and everyone knows how much data a radiology practice can produce.

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