Ronald B. Schilling, PhD

Advancements in music and mammography follow similar paths.

An argument that Moore’s law is at work in medical imaging.

Editor’s note: Over the past year, Ron Schilling’s commentaries in DI SCAN have addressed issues regarding business strategies in medical imaging. We are publishing some of the questions and responses rising from those commentaries, while inviting new requests for information.

Editor’s note: Over the past year, Ron Schilling’s commentaries in DI SCAN have addressed issues regarding business strategies in medical imaging. We are publishing some of the questions and responses rising from those commentaries, while inviting new requests for information.

Editor’s note: Over the past year, Ronald Schilling’s commentaries in DI SCAN have addressed issues regarding business strategies in medical imaging. We are publishing some of those questions and responses and invite new requests for information.

Editor’s note: Over the past year, Ron Schilling’s commentaries in DI SCAN have addressed issues regarding business strategies in medical imaging. We are publishing some of those questions and responses and invite new requests for information.

Editor's note: Over the past year, Ron Schilling has been fielding questions from readers in response to his commentaries on business strategies in medical imaging. We are publishing some of those questions and responses and invite new requests for information.

Editor’s note: Over the past year, Ron Schilling has been fielding questions from readers in response to his commentaries on business strategies in medical imaging. We are publishing some of those questions and responses and invite new requests for information.

We spend a lot of time at work coming up with strategies that will ensure our success or, at a minimum, safely differentiate us from the competition. Today, it is often difficult to separate the practices of nonprofit organizations from for-profit organizations when it comes to strategic process. What about another institution that is, perhaps, the most important to us: the home? Where does strategy fit into our life at home?

When combined, strategic thinking tools discussed in earlier columns compose a kind of tool kit that provides the essentials required for a detailed business strategy. But these tools must be used effectively to meet their potential. We will, therefore, consider the factors necessary (and, we hope, sufficient) to create a detailed business strategy and see how the tools can enable the development of that strategy. The following examples serve simply as a starting point.

The key to success, when planning strategy, is communication among team members. While past columns have described tools to assist teams make decisions more effectively (DI SCAN, Strategic thinking tools), we have not yet discussed the environments that may allow for effective communication.

In the near future, differentiation among the big players in medical imaging will not be based on modality-specific technology. It will be based on total service.

Panic tends to accompany talk of developing a strategic plan, which is often viewed as a long and tedious process. This need not be the case. Having described in this column a number of strategic thinking tools over the last few months, tools that will be outlined below, you and your team are in a position to put together, in a straightforward manner, the essentials of a strategic plan.

The key to any company’s strategy is an understanding of its core technology and how the company plans to expand that core. To remain a leader demands mastery of this core-expansion game, as “he who has the largest core wins.”

There is often confusion between doing the right things and doing things right. Perhaps the best way to explain the difference is with an example.

In a previous column on technology assessment, it was noted that PACS installations completed during the early years of the technology typically yielded low value. The key reason was that technology adoption was not accompanied by behavior modification. Physicians continued to print film rather than make diagnoses from soft-copy images. Why wasn’t this situation avoided? Why didn’t the manufacturers work with the customers to train and prepare them to use the new technology properly( “Successful technology implementation makes medical imaging tick”)?

The successful implementation of new technology is what makes the field of medical imaging tick. Making this happen cost-effectively is often difficult to do, because we are dealing not only with the technology in question, but also with the processes associated with implementation. These processes affect behavior and behavior is driven by one’s belief system.

We have now examined three areas that are significant for management organizations: competition (DI SCAN, High 5 highlights importance of understanding the competition), execution (DI SCAN, How vision determines success), and investment (DI SCAN, Real-Win-Worth). Strategic thinking tools bind these three together.

Making investment decisions is perhaps the most important responsibility of any executive. Examples in healthcare include building a new structure and purchasing a major piece of equipment. The typical approach involves a very long and tedious list of questions. For vendors, this means answering those questions. However, in the early stages, when strategy is required, Real-Win-Worth (RWW) is the way to go for both the buyers and the sellers of those investments.

We all want to make our projects successful. Doing so demands total focus of all available resources. Focus requires excellent communication among all team members. Simple, right?

One of the most important factors to determine when evaluating a company, whether a start-up or an established firm, is how well its leaders understand their potential competition. A good example of a bad situation was the lack of understanding that became apparent when the lithotripsy crowd decided to move from kidney stones to gallstones. They viewed the competition as other lithotripsy companies. The real competition turned out to be pharma companies and surgeons. For gallstones can be dissolved with pharma products and the gallbladder simply removed with minimally invasive surgery. They missed the obvious partly because it was not so obvious.