Siemens and Philips share hardware but claim distinctions What a difference a few hundredths of a second can make. At the last RSNA meeting, leading CT vendors showcased 16-slice versions of their flagship products. The decision to

First commercial unit ships this month The first two commercial shipments of a product incorporating a sophisticated form of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) will go to Canadian institutions in May and June. Six more

Deal eases budgeting for service and upgrades Philips Medical Systems is trying out a technology protection plan at Duke University Medical Center. The plan calls for Philips to upgrade the center's Sonos ultrasound system and

Volume drops to lowest point in two years March was not a good month for FDA clearances, as the number of products passing regulatory review dropped to just 17. This marked the fewest products cleared by the agency since January

PACS vendor Amicas has cut a deal to provide Sonix Medical Resources with an enterprise-wide medical image management system. Sonix, a provider of healthcare development and management services, has 18 imaging centers in the New York/New Jersey area and

Redwood City, CA-based BrainLab hopes to bring the MRI industry a step closer to interventional applications with the development of BrainSuite, an experimental neurosurgical operating room that combines image-guided surgery, intra-operative MRI, and

While hospitals and radiology practice groups show growing interest in sharing single PACS, most discussions involve resolution of macro financial and technical bandwidth issues. Sometimes micro barriers can be just as critical. Maine Medical Center, a

The one-size-fits-all approach to radiology workstation design is no longer sufficient, according to a study from Canada. "While PACS vendors race to add more features to radiology workstations, there appears to be little interest in addressing

Customer demand will drive spread of GSDFGray-scale standard display function (GSDF) for DICOM has been struggling to achieve critical mass ever since Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) began defining a profile for

As one imaging company nears the brink of insolvency, another has emerged from it. Dictaphone, an early developer of dictation and speech recognition technology, has formally shaken loose the bonds of Chapter 11. The Stratford, CT, company is now an

Visualization Technology is now part of GE Medical Systems. The deal to acquire the developer of image-guided surgery (IGS) products, announced earlier this year (SCAN 2/20/02), is the second such acquisition by GE. The first, involving Surgical Insights

Bottom line growth feeds on new clinical applicationsAmersham Health is at the top of its game. Revenues are up. So is market share. The reasons are three-fold: a strong patented portfolio, active life cycle management, and

Managers resist urge to impose old bureaucracy Changing the name of Agfa's medical imaging business last year to Agfa HealthCare was more than a cosmetic move. The unit, which traditionally focused on imaging, is undergoing a

Hologic hopes to enter a strategic alliance with Agfa to help develop its amorphous selenium digital mammography system. The collaboration, which could be finalized in the next several months, would leverage Agfa's strength in image processing

Icon clutter that can distract and confuse radiologists using PACS workstations has been addressed in a new study.The paper (J Digit Imaging, DOI: 10.1007/s10278-002-5078-x, published Online: 20 Mar

Until hospitals become fully filmless, PACS displays and archives will require devices to transform conventional x-ray film into digital images. The use of digitizers requires performance evaluation to assure medical image quality.Two technologies

The cosmic view of radiology divides the people of the world into two kinds: friends of radiology and everyone else. IT departments frequently fall in the second column. The conflict between radiology and IT has many sources based in PACS-related

February sustains forward progressDespite being the shortest month of the year, February has typically been a good month for FDA clearances. This year, regulators slowed a bit, clearing just 22 products for marketing in the U.S.

Several companies have taken the final steps to join GE Medical Systems. MedicaLogic, a developer of electronic medical

GE Medical Systems and American Diagnostic Medicine, a provider of turnkey diagnostic imaging services, have launched an