The question of how many people it takes to operate PACS is not a joke, as those hospitals that do step over the digital line soon discover. Developing a staff adequate to meet the demands of filmless radiology operations is a continuous challenge,

Despite bluster and hyperbole to the contrary, PACS companies are detaching themselves from the very capability they promote. These vendors, more and more, are becoming product- rather than solution-based.“Leading PACS suppliers are starting to

The Uptime Service Center of Siemens Medical is growing up. The one-story building in Cary, NC, is adding two floors, a move that will triple its current 20,000 square feet. The service center is Siemens’ hub for servicing its imaging products in

AccuImage Diagnostics is moving to the University of California, San Francisco, Radiologic Imaging Laboratory (RIL) in South San Francisco. It will be a return to familiar surroundings for AccuImage CEO Leon Kaufman, Ph.D., who spent much of his career

Nearly a third of the 25 radiology-related applications passing FDA muster in April address radiation oncology. The rest were split among MRI, ultrasound, image management, and nuclear medicine. Standouts included two ultrasound systems, an x-ray

Digital imaging and distribution technologies are shaping fundamental changes in workflow. Everything from department design to perceptions about radiology’s role in healthcare is up for grabs.Pundits predict that by 2010 up to 80% of tertiary-care

Despite the ability to save radiology departments hundreds of thousands of dollars and dramatically decrease report turnaround time, speech recognition (SR) systems have long been denied market acceptance, perhaps because those savings have come at the

At yet another talk on the many benefits of PACS, I asked the speaker why, if PACS have so many benefits and are so cost effective, haven't more people adopted them? The answer was somewhat convoluted, but two major issues appeared: Costs, in

Traditionally, PACS and RIS have coexisted in the same hospital but kept separate databases containing supposedly identical data -- a situation ripe with potential for inaccuracies. Ideally, hospitals should be able to address user needs through use of a

PACS, which began as a hospital-based image management tool, is being configured to support multiple institutions and imaging centers. This step takes advantage of its potential for cost cutting. PACS offers savings and operational opportunities for

Dedicated electrophysiology products are joining the product lineup of Toshiba America Medical Systems as part of a sales and marketing strategic alliance between Toshiba and Fischer Imaging. The alliance was struck to allow Fischer Imaging to focus

The imaging systems are ready to go in a pioneering cardiovascular lab at the University of California, San Francisco, designed as a test bed for new ideas and novel applications combining x-ray angiography and MRI. The interventional suite will explore

Marconi Medical Systems has entered the PET market—not with products of its own making but with ones built by the same company that supplies industry leader Siemens Medical Solutions. The agreement, announced in mid-May, allows Marconi to

In a move that took the PACS industry by surprise, eMed Technologies announced May 17 the resignation of CEO Caren Mason. The company cited Mason’s long-distance commute from Wisconsin to eMed’s Boston-based headquarters and her

The shock wave gravy train derailed more than a decade ago, when minimally invasive surgery all but took over the gallstone market. Vendors had hoped gallstone treatments would boost this technology, popularized by its ability to smash kidney stones, to

Acuson, a subsidiary of Siemens Medical Solutions, achieved a major milestone in early May, installing its 5000th Sequoia system at Hays Medical Center in Hays, KS. The Sequoia platform was introduced in 1996 and has been periodically updated. Among the

A new server for medical imaging, AquariusNET, provides streaming 2-D and 3-D capability to existing PACS review stations and standard networked PCs, according to developer TeraRecon. The product, unveiled at the Symposium on Computer Applications in

The first Intera very high field scanner has been installed at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH in Zùrich, Switzerland. The institute has served as a key luminary site for Philips Medical Systems, having developed the

In industry parlance, it is reverse logistics. What it means is managing the return of parts and equipment for repair or substitution. GE Medical Systems has recruited BAX Global to handle this dark side of sales. Under the contract, the supply-chain

Merge Technologies has released the Java version of its MergeCOM-3 DICOM toolkit. The kit provides added flexibility in programming Internet applications, according to the company, promising enhanced development of portable, Web-based healthcare