Information Theft: How to Prevent It

September 16, 2008 | Data Central

What do hospital administrators and their CIOs fear above all else? It may be information theft, especially if that information includes sensitive patient data. Nothing grabs the attention as completely as learning that a laptop laden with patient data has slipped out the door. With preparation, though, such an... Read More »

Avoiding Nightmare PACS Outages

September 16, 2008 | The Daily Grind

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. Toland, who is PACS administrative team manager for the University of Maryland Medical System, Baltimore, presented... Read More »

Long-term Data Management and Migration for PACS

September 16, 2008 | Destination Digital

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, according to Frederick M. Behlen, PhD. Behlen is an officer, director, and shareholder of LAITEK Inc, also known as Migratek™ Data Migration Services, Homewood,... Read More »

How I Do It: Maximizing Efficiency in CTA Interpretation

September 16, 2008 | The Virtuoso

They’re coming, and in many hospitals, they have already arrived: multidetector CT (MDCT), CT angiography (CTA), and advanced 3D imaging. This wonderful new modality offers the promise of evaluating disease processes from atherosclerosis to cancer to trauma more quickly, safely, and accurately than older techniques can. CTA is... Read More »

Advance Preparation Is Key to Smooth Migration

August 15, 2008 | Radinformatics

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. The servers in use by the legacy system were on their last legs;... Read More »

Role of the Practice CIO

June 15, 2008 | NONE

The adoption of PACS by radiology practices has added a new member to their executive committees: the CIO. “The core duties of the CIO in a practice that has acquired PACS ought to be to establish security of the PACS data for both the radiology group and its clients... Read More »

Leverage PACS IT Support to Grow Referrals

May 16, 2008 | Planning Portal

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.

John Griffith, CRA, CIIP, RT, and CIO of Epic Imaging, Portland, Ore, operates in a market that grew... Read More »

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

May 16, 2008 | The Daily Grind

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. The installation team had not configured the scanner to communicate with... Read More »

Grow Your Multisite Business With a Single Sign-on Solution

May 16, 2008 | Enterprise Trooper

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: upgrade ORMG’s RIS/PACS platform or face dissolution. ORMG had been in operation for nearly a decade, but the... Read More »

Intersociety Conference Urges Adoption of Structured Reports

May 16, 2008 | Dashboard Confessions

Aside from referrers’ clear-cut preference for structured reports, radiologists have added cause to adopt the use of structured reporting. At its annual meeting last summer, the 2007 Intersociety Conference urged the adoption of structured reports, according to an article by N. Reed Dunnick, MD, and Curtis P. Langlotz, MD, in... Read More »

A CIO at the Table

May 16, 2008 | Heavy Traffic

Most radiology practices have not invited their CIOs onto the executive committee, but a recent surve1 from the Center for CIO Leadership suggests that it may be time to set another place at the table. A practice benefits not only from hiring a well-qualified CIO, but also from empowering... Read More »

Advanced Visualization: A Do-it-yourself Approach

May 15, 2008 | Radinformatics

With three-dimensional and other advanced visualization tools being used for a greater share of CT and other imaging studies, it is more important than ever for radiologists to have access to postprocessing software and equipment at the point of interpretation.

It is equally important for radiologists to... Read More »

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

April 15, 2008 | Reading Room

It’s coming. In many hospitals, it has already arrived. We’re talking about multidetector CT (MDCT), CT angiography, and advanced 3D imaging. This wonderful new technology offers the promise of evaluating disease processes, from atherosclerosis to cancer to trauma, more quickly, safely, and accurately than older techniques. CT... Read More »

Enterprise PACS: A Good Thing for Radiology?

March 15, 2008 | Feature

Considerable benefits accrue to the institution when approaching PACS outside the radiology box.

PACS took 20 years to mature as a technology in radiology, and it is a necessity today for cost-effective, productive imaging operations. In the early years of development, PACS was largely a radiology-centered endeavor with... Read More »

Get on Board With Virtualized Servers

March 15, 2008 | Radinformatics

As any PACS administrator can attest, the cost of advanced imaging technology is higher than the price of a new CT or PET scanner. As the number of DICOM images attained per scan increases exponentially, software and hardware alike have a hard time keeping up with the load; no... Read More »

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

March 15, 2008 | Reading Room

Staying abreast with (or, better yet, staying ahead of) the imaging-technology curve clearly follows a clinical imperative. Better imaging tools—in this case, 3D postprocessed reconstructions—have an immediate payoff for patient care. When a surgeon can use 3D imaging to measure and plan a vascular procedure better, for... Read More »

Look, No Hands: Reports Go Directly to Referrer EMRs

February 16, 2008 | Heavy Traffic

John Griffith, CIO of Epic Imaging, Portland, Ore, says, “They asked us for it, and we had to come up with a solution.” The radiology practice provides imaging for close to 2,000 physician referrers; what they wanted was electronically delivered radiology reports sent to their practices not via fax, nor... Read More »

Better Than Aspirin: Modality Testing and Troubleshooting

February 16, 2008 | Destination Digital

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

Installing a new modality and upgrading existing modalities are recurring events. Some of these installations take just a few hours, but others could take days, or even longer.... Read More »

CIIP Update: Getting Certified Got Easier

February 16, 2008 | The Daily Grind

There’s no single textbook, and no specified curriculum, but preparing for the certified imaging informatics professional (CIIP) examination just got a bit easier with the completion of the learning objectives for each of the 10 domains of the American Board of Imaging Informatics (ABII) Test Content Outline (TCO).

When Disaster Means No Recovery

January 15, 2008 | Radinformatics

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. The PACS administrator confirms that events have... Read More »

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

January 15, 2008 | Quality

The nation’s first curriculum-based program for volumetric imaging began as do many collaborations between local businesses and technical colleges: a local start-up in search of a steady stream of skilled employees approached a local technical college.

Robert Falk, MD, founding manager director and chief medical officer... Read More »

Wake Radiology Reduces Risk with Tier II+ Data Center

November 15, 2007 | Radinformatics

In the fall of 2005, 58-member Wake Radiology found itself feeling vulnerable. Having achieved the holy grail of the electronic practice by banishing paper and film, the practice understood that it had much to lose if it lost the network over which it leveraged subspecialized reads across three area hospitals... Read More »

Achieving Return on a Dedicated 3D Service

November 15, 2007 | Legislative Report

A dedicated 3D service can improve patient care and enhance operational efficiency. Building and operating such a service requires a significant investment in staff, equipment, information technology (IT), space, overhead and other expenses; however, both improving care and realizing a return on investment (ROI) on these expenditures is often... Read More »

IT as Gatekeeper: Who’s on PACS?

October 15, 2007 | Radinformatics

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.

Craig Roy is chief information officer and head of IT (information technology) for Radiological Associates of Sacramento (RAS),... Read More »

Radia Homogenizes Client Base with Homegrown Worklist

September 15, 2007 | Radinformatics

The PACS has come a long way since its inception, enabling communications among all imaging stakeholders in a hospital or health system. But what is the large radiology practice to do that works in a heterogeneous environment, with multiple information and dictation systems, and a centralized reading model?