By Greg Freiherr, Editor, gfreiherr@cmp.comToday's equipment reflects manufacturers' philosophies about how medicine is practiced. This overview has become a prerequisite of

Combined company firms up industry networks in U.S.Two distributors of imaging equipment--Health Care Products (HCP) and Diagnostic Imaging (DI)--are being merged into a single company under the ownership of Platinum Equity. The

Dictaphone's Healthcare Solutions Group (Stratford, CT) and eMed Technologies (Burlington, MA) announced Dec. 6 a joint marketing and development deal, agreeing to integrate Dictaphone's PowerScribe speech recognition system with eMed's Web-based Ideal

Design balances weight, size, cost, and speedMobile imaging played a key role in building the early popularity of CT, MR, and PET. It may soon do the same for PET/CT, making hybrids available to those who lack the budget or

IT developer Sectra (Linköping Sweden) and Royal Philips Electronics (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) announced during the RSNA meeting an agreement to extend their partnership in PACS for another five years. As part of the alliance, Sectra provides the core

Mention the word security to PACS administrators, and their main areas of concern would usually be workstations and servers. What they may be overlooking, however, is the modality equipment connected to the PACS network.With the growing demand to

The first company to commercialize a full-field digital mammography system and the first to deliver mammography CAD have renewed their alliance. GE Medical Systems (Waukesha, WI) and R2 Technology (Sunnyvale, CA) announced Dec. 12 that R2's ImageChecker

An efficient reporting system is a necessity in any PACS environment to provide timely, accurate reports to referring physicians. One high-performance Japanese speech recognition solution was presented in an infoRAD exhibit at the recent RSNA meeting.

Deal could have major impact on mammographyFor the fourth time in two months, GE Medical Systems is making a play for another company. Unlike the first three, however, which sought companies with products complementary to GE's own

Major vendors picked up where they left off last year in the development of hybrid PET/CT systems, extending technology to its furthest capabilities or tweaking existing products for specialty applications. Premium performance 16-slice CT scanners were

Efforts intensify to increase access to 3DVoxar is determined to become a dominant power in 3D, as a provider of both stand-alone tools and PACS software. It plans to achieve this through the development of products that run on

Vendors respond to needs for quicker scanning and automated reportingCentral dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) has been the core technology for diagnosing osteoporosis and monitoring its treatment for nearly a decade. But the sale of

Vendors are treading lightly on the ground they have already plowed. Unveilings and works-in-progress shown at the RSNA meeting were the offspring of mature technologies rather than breakthroughs. The reason may be that no major innovations are

Computer-aided detection is moving into high-visibility mammography and DR systems, as imaging heavyweights form development and distribution alliances with CAD vendors. Amid these corporate moves, developers of CAD continue to advance the technology.

Image acquisition and display mimic live TVWhen Siemens Medical Solutions introduced its lightweight Sonoline Antares ultrasound system in mid-2001, the company emphasized ergonomics and ease of use as much as image quality. That

The exhibit floor at the RSNA meeting provided a stark contrast to that of the preceding year. Exhibits were mobbed. The fear of flying that had kept 10% of the usual attendees away in 2001 appeared to have been replaced by a fear of being left behind.

The consolidation bubble burst two years ago when the stock market began its long slide, but you wouldn't know it from observing GE Medical Systems. The giant vendor hatched plans to grow bigger with the proposed acquisition of two companies: Millbrook

Varian Medical Systems announced during the RSNA meeting it had acquired the assets of MRW, a reloader and distributor of medical x-ray tubes in Germany. Reloaders put new cores into burned out x-ray tubes and reseal them with oil-filled housings. The

Advances in C-arms appeared in the portfolios of premium performance and value-oriented vendors alike. Some included the next step up from small-size flat panels optimized for cardiac imaging to those large enough for peripheral vascular imaging. Others

A flurry of ultrasound systems, from high end to handheld miniatures, arrived on the RSNA exhibit floor, allaying fears that the massive consolidations since the late 1990s would affect the diversity and quality of products. There was the usual fare of