Leadership As Performance Art

November 28, 2011 | Final Read

I am sure that many of you have read the great 2004 book by Fred Lee, If Disney Ran Your Hospital.1 I have often used the material in this definitive treatise on customer service in my strategic-planning retreats, as the ideas and concepts about which Lee writes are timeless and... Read More »

Inevitable Evolution

November 28, 2011 | NONE

When Barry D. Pressman, MD, FACR, began his radiology career, Nixon was resigning from the White House and neuroradiology was just developing as a specialty. Musculoskeletal radiology largely meant reading bone radiographs. Pressman says, “CT came on the scene in 1972, but we didn’t even know how to spell... Read More »

Subspecialization and Teleradiology: An Uneasy Alliance

November 28, 2011 | Feature

Why would orthopedic surgeons bypass a nearby hospital or imaging center when referring patients? If they happened to be in the Midwest, they might prefer the subspecialized interpretations offered by Linda L. Dew, MD, FRCPC. After more than two decades as a practicing radiologist, Dew has developed expertise in... Read More »

In Search of Shangri-La: Alternative Models of Imaging-service Delivery

November 28, 2011 | Feature

For decades, the radiology practice partnership model has been the dominant form of imaging delivery. Change, however, is afoot. Health-care reform and other factors are driving the development of new imaging-delivery models that merit a close look, if imaging providers are to weather the storm of change that is... Read More »

Collaboration Trumps Control

November 28, 2011 | Priors

Top-down, authoritarian leadership in health care’s new era of collaboration is likely to find its currency on the decline. Particularly in a wired specialty such as radiology, leaders will be challenged to engage an increasingly distributed workforce in the broader team approach called for by new delivery models... Read More »

The Future of the Practice of Radiology

November 28, 2011 | The Bottom Line

I have great optimism for the survival of the practice of radiology. I believe that many groups will thrive, and that there is the opportunity for continued professional satisfaction. For many of us, however, success will need to be redefined.

There are many changes occurring around us.... Read More »

The Tricky Art of Leadership Succession: Who Wants the Ball?

October 28, 2011 | Feature

It is a well-accepted axiom in business that to be successful, a leader must want to lead. The truth, though, is that business entities often struggle to find leaders because no one really wants to put in the time or make the effort to push the organization up the... Read More »

Pay and Partnership in Radiology Practices

October 28, 2011 | Feature

In the past, many radiology private practices used a fairly traditional (and extended) track leading to full partnership in the practice. Now, however, many practices are exploring emerging compensation models—including accelerated partnership tracks and enhanced flexibility in balancing earnings and hours—to accommodate the needs and preferences of... Read More »

Measuring Performance in Radiology

October 28, 2011 | Feature

Number crunchers at radiology practices might occasionally lose sleep over the complex nature of performance assessment, but that’s nothing, compared with the sleepless nights experienced by women who learn of possible breast abnormalities. In his work as regional radiology department chief at Kaiser Permanente (KP) Colorado in Denver,... Read More »

Charting the Leadership Course: Tales From the High Seas

October 28, 2011 | Feature

What qualities make a radiology leader? What experiences best prepare leaders to assume their roles? How do leaders know whether they are performing to the best of their abilities? These were among the questions that Radiology Business Journal recently asked four undisputed industry leaders: a radiology-department chair, a practice... Read More »

The Rise of the Physician Leader

October 27, 2011 | The Bottom Line

The roles of the physician leader and the administrative leader are evolving in new ways. Historically, the physician leader devoted extra time to committees, to being the spokesperson for the medical group, and to chairing meetings. With complexity increasing and change rampant throughout health care, organizational leadership needs are... Read More »

Dose Reduction in Radiology: An Industrywide Initiative

October 21, 2011 | NONE

There is no more compelling story in radiology today than the urgency with which organized radiology and imaging modality vendors have come together to address the issue of dose management in radiology. Yes, more work lies ahead, and significant challenges remain—but the swiftness and decisiveness with which providers... Read More »

All Aboard California’s Dose-reduction Locomotive

October 21, 2011 | NONE

In September 2010, California Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger™ signed into law a measure mandating that radiologists include dose–length product or volume CT dose index in all reports. Such a development probably spurred many imaging service providers to begin thinking about radiation-dose–reduction initiatives, but Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center ... Read More »

UC Davis Medical Center Embarks on Journey to Reduce Dose by 20%

October 21, 2011 | NONE

Dose management (including dose-reduction strategies) is a dominant topic of conversation throughout the imaging world. Cross-disciplinary efforts to resolve the issue are moving to the forefront of both vendor and provider dockets, spurred on not least by quality metrics that tie reimbursement rates to patient outcomes.

At... Read More »

Next-generation Radiology Leadership

September 04, 2011 | Final Read

It is always encouraging to see the profession’s top-tier institutions embrace the notion of helping to develop tomorrow’s radiology leaders. It not only is the right thing to do for a profession in transition, but it validates and underscores what has become, for me, a vocational mandate.... Read More »

Improving Radiology for Radiologists: Thomas Pope, MD

July 16, 2011 | Imaging Futures

Thomas Pope, MD, a musculoskeletal MRI and breast-imaging specialist with Radisphere National Radiology Group (Beachwood, Ohio), began his career in subspecialty imaging before it was common for radiologists to be fellowship trained. “I never did a fellowship, but I received on-the-job training in musculoskeletal radiology from my mentor at... Read More »

Joint Adventure: A Case Study in Hospital–Practice Integration

July 16, 2011 | Deal Scan

This article is the second in a four-part series on options for hospital–practice integration. To read the first article, click here.

Of one of the largest joint-venture integrations ever completed between a hospital and... Read More »

Managing Expectations

July 04, 2011 | Final Read

Editor Cheryl Proval and I had the privilege of moderating a very interesting and animated session at the recent RBMA meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was a face-to-face panel discussion with the CEOs of each of the five radiology benefit management (RBM) companies. Anticipation built during the conference,... Read More »

The Radiology MBA

February 17, 2011 | Final Read

A thought occurred to me recently, as I worked with a rather large and very successful radiology practice: Radiologists in private practice who have built organizations functioning at high levels have done so, for the most part, without the benefit of a formal education in business. Trial and error,... Read More »

Malpractice Issues in Radiology: Failure to Communicate

January 16, 2011 | Legislative Report

There are two major ways that a physician ends up in court, sued for malpractice: first, by providing care in a negligent manner; second, by failing to inform the patient properly. While radiologists are not exempt from the former problem, they have largely been shielded from the latter because... Read More »

Developing Appropriateness Criteria for Imaging

January 16, 2011 | Imaging Futures

Decision support might be the technology that brings imaging out of external control and back into self-regulation, since its effectiveness appears to equal or exceed that of other utilization-management strategies (including burdensome preauthorization). Every decision-support program, however, must be able to tell the ordering physician how useful an imaging... Read More »

Right-brain Radiology

January 16, 2011 | The Big Picture

You might recall that a few years ago, in this column, I extolled the virtues of a unique book by Daniel Pink called A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future (Riverhead, 2006). It discusses the emergence, in our society, of a new appreciation for a balance between... Read More »

Business 101: Communication and Information Sharing in Radiology

December 12, 2010 | Revenue Track

This article is the final installment in a four-part series on applying basic business concepts to radiology. To read the first installment, click here; to read the second, click Read More »

Reflections

December 12, 2010 | The Big Picture

Here we are at the end of yet another tumultuous year in the health-care arena—perhaps one even more tumultuous than most. There are new laws, new expectations, revised plans, and lots more to write about as we face the consequences—intended and otherwise. Having just returned from the... Read More »

A Corner Turned

November 28, 2010 | Final Read

It is rather amazing, for those of us here at imagingBiz who hopefully envisioned this day, that it has arrived much sooner (and with much more definition) than we anticipated when we crafted the concept for Radiology Business Journal a few short years ago. The fact that we are... Read More »