RSNA 2009 Is Right Around the Corner

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That’s right, folks! RSNA 2009 is just over a week away, and the statread blog—in its exciting new location—will be bringing you news and updates live from the show floor Sunday through Thursday to make sure you won’t miss a thing. As we continue to finalize our schedule for the show, feel free to drop us a line in the comments section to let us know what’s on your mind. We’ll bring you coverage of the hottest sessions, the biggest vendor news and what we’re hearing from industry insiders as we make our rounds. And if you’re going to be at the show, be sure to drop by the imagingBiz booth at some point to pick up the most recent issue of Radiology Business Journal and subscribe free to our exciting publications.

See you in Chicago!

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RSNA 2009—Here We Go!

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Welcome to StatRead’s 2009 coverage of RSNA! We’re here in drizzly gray Chicago to bring you all the news you need from the show. Stop by and see us at the ImagingBiz booth and be sure to return throughout the day for up-to-the-minute coverage of the show!

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Liveblogging the Radiology Mock Jury Trial

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For most of the day today I’ll be liveblogging the Mock Jury Trial. For those new to blog-reading, a liveblog is a continuously updated entry designed to make you feel as much as possible as if you’re there in the room. Keep refreshing this entry to follow the trial as it progresses! The trial, moderated by Leonard Berlin, MD, will be based on a Chicago malpractice case filed by the family of a 55-year-old man who died of lung cancer a year after his radiologist reported on a suspicious finding, but failed to communicate the finding verbally to the referring physician . . .

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Mock Jury Trial, Part 2

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Demetrio continues to grill Berlin on hospital policy as it relates to the reading of ED x-rays and communication of those findings. Demetrio establishes that the ED is about twenty feet from the radiology department at Berlin’s hospital. “Normally the way it works is that if the x-ray was taken in the ED, those x-rays go to the radiology department for final review,” says Berlin. (Is it me, or is he sounding awfully defensive for a mock defendant?) Now Demetrio is stressing that Berlin knew that both the patient and the ED referring physician were not in the ED anymore at the time he faxed the report.

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Mock Jury Trial, Part 3

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As Nickels takes his turn questioning Dr. Chesbrough, he stresses that though they agree that Dr. Berlin should’ve had the preliminary findings from the ED to compare with his own report, unfortunately, it wasn’t there. Nickels shows the ED doc’s report as an exhibit and notes that the form includes no cc information to indicate that a copy would be sent to the radiology department. “You recall Dr. Berlin’s testimony that sometimes a radiology department would see this form, and sometimes they would not?” “I do,” Chesbrough says.

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Jury Deliberations and Verdict—Mock Trial

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I’m sitting and listening to the jury’s deliberations in the mock trial. After some debate, it sounds as if most have agreed that Dr. Berlin acted reasonably. “I can see both sides,” one juror says, “but it’s not his fault. There has to be effective communication, but it’s not his fault.” But a dissenting perspective comes from another juror, who notes, “I don’t think it would’ve hurt him to follow through. The ED was twenty feet away. And it’s a person’s life.”

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Sunday Bits and Bytes

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I haven’t heard any figures to confirm or refute this, but it seems like attendance at this year’s RSNA—much like attendance at last year’s—has been impacted negatively by the struggling economy. Anecdotal evidence includes the nonexistent cab line at the airport yesterday evening (if you were here back in 2007, you know what I’m talking about) as well as the comparative isolation available here in the South Hall’s upstairs cafe, which is usually so packed it’s hard to find a table. Have you come to the show in the past, but decided to give it a miss this year? Or, if you’re here, do things seem a little less hectic than usual to you?

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Generational Issues

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At dinner with members of a prominent radiology group this evening, the conversation turned to generational differences and how they impact management and corporate culture. This was something of a hot topic at this year’s RBMA conference, where it seemed like everyone had an opinion about the younger generations—specifically, Gen Y (my own crowd) and the so-called “millennials”—and how we’re impossible to work with. (Oh, really? Say it to my face, already!)

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Radiology’s Changing Dynamics: Health Care Reform

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It’s a cold, sunny morning here in Chicago, and I’m sitting in on the first of two sessions entitled “Where is the Radiologist?: Radiology’s Changing Dynamics.” The second of the two will kick off at 10:30 a.m. in room E350 of the Lakeside Learning Center, so if you’re missing out on this morning’s session, you can still stop in for the latter session.

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Paramjit Chopra, MD: What You’re Doing Wrong

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“When I look at this country,” said Paramjit Chopra, MD, who immigrated to the US twenty years ago, “I realize that we are incredibly spoiled. We want everybody to have everything, and we don’t want to worry about who’s going to pay for it. The basic principle of economics is that there is going to be scarcity.” Just the facts at this morning’s session on what radiologists need to do to prepare for health care reform, where Chopra led the discussion.

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Jim Borgstede, MD, on Staffing and Imaging Workload

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Jim Borgstede, MD, kicked off this morning’s second session on the topic of “Where is the Radiologist?: Radiology’s Changing Dynamics.” The well attended panel focused on staffing and imaging workloads; Borgstede reported that workloads for radiologists have increased sharply since the early nineties, while payment has begun to level off. Well, no huge shocks there.

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Pat Kroken on Improving Hospital Relationships

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Pat Kroken began her session this morning by referring to herself as “the ultimate capitalist.” She mentioned a few operational issues that can be overlooked by radiology groups working with hospitals, including the issue of remote reads touched on by Dr. Borgstede. “Remote reads introduce a whole new business dynamic to the hospital-radiologist relationship,” she said.

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The End of Self-Referral?

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“The bottom line is that accreditation has the potential to have a tremendous impact on the delivery of imaging services in non-radiology physician offices,” said Tom Greeson in this afternoon’s session on MIPPA accreditation requirements. “Supervision can have a dramatic impact on the delivery of services paid for by Medicare and private payors.”

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Monday Bits and Bytes: Yep, There’s an App for That

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It seems like smart phones can do just about anything these days—according to new research, radiologists can even use them to accurately diagnose acute appendicitis, provided they have the right software. In a study performed at UVA, five radiologists used an iPhone to attempt to diagnose acute appendicitis from CT scans of 25 patients presenting with right lower abdomen pain. Fifteen of the 25 patients were properly diagnosed using the phones, and there were no false positive readings. “The iPhone interpretations of the CT scans were as accurate as the interpretations viewed on dedicated PACS workstations,” said the study’s lead author.

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What’s the Buzz?

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It’s only the second day of the six-day holiday season behemoth known as RSNA, and already we’ve picked up on a few trends. Radiology cloud computing (think of it as Google Docs for imagers) is a hot topic, with several vendors showcasing new solutions. There’s a chill in the air, and also riding the breeze is word of new elastography applications for both MR and ultrasound. We introduced you to the concept of iterative reconstruction back in May at MDCT (our inaugural blogging run—how distant those days seem now!), so it’s no surprise that it’s all the buzz at the culminating conference of the radiologist’s year. What else is happening? Anything caught your eye that you’d like your faithful StatRead correspondent to investigate further?

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Scientific Methodology for Performance Assessment

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Quality improvement. It’s the phrase on everyone’s lips at this year’s RSNA, and several sessions this morning will focus on the nuts and bolts of the process, providing a roadmap for making concrete steps toward practice improvement. Dr. James Duncan spoke on using the scientific method to assess physician performance. “The public is spending an incredible amount of money on health care,” he said, “and their impression is that they’re not getting their money’s worth.”

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Anatomy of an Error

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This morning’s sessions on quality improvement continued with Jonathan Kruskal, MD, PhD, focusing on safety and risk management in radiology. His presentation, “Anatomy and Pathophysiology of Radiological Errors,” kicked off with a quote from AJR: “It is not the occurrence of error that is damning, but the failure to seize on it as an opportunity for improvement.”

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Zero Defects: Is It Possible?

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Lucy Glenn, MD, spoke this morning on strategies for minimizing errors in diagnostic imaging. She began by discussing the concept of “zero defects”: “We as health care workers have to change our mindset,” she said. “What the typical organization wants is very few defects. We have to embrace what the patient wants, which is no defects. We have to get to a mindset where we think that perfection is possible and injuries are avoidable.”

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Toward Quantitative Imaging: A Tour of the Reading Room of the Future

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A new feature at this year’s RSNA, the Radiology Reading Room of the Future incorporates 15 displays from leading academic institutions and vendors showcasing the potential—and power—of quantitative imaging. Our gallery of the Reading Room takes you inside the Lakeside Learning Center so you can see all the action!

 

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Tuesday Bits and Bytes: Mammo Ups Breast Cancer Risk?

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Amidst a hurricane of controversy surrounding the US Preventative Services Task Force’s new mammography screening recommendations comes fresh research presented today at RSNA 2009: low-dose radiation from annual mammography screening could up the risk of developing breast cancer in some high-risk women. In a retrospective study of high-risk women, those who were exposed to low-dose radiation experienced a risk of breast cancer 1.5 times that of high-risk women not exposed to radiation. “Our findings suggest that low-dose radiation increases breast cancer risk among these young high-risk women, and a careful approach is warranted,” said the study’s lead author.

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