Facility Management

The creators of CT screening colonographyhave not waited for the medicalestablishment and insurers to accept itas an alternative to optical colonoscopy.

Radiation dose reduction was a dominanttheme at the 2008 RSNA scientificassembly.

During 18 years as a radiologic technologist, JeffCrowley acknowledged he sometimes thought,"Oh, I can do that," while assisting withprocedures.

Not long ago, our approach to treating difficultmetastatic tumors was to "spray and pray." Weknew that chemotherapy and other traditionaltreatment approaches could cause great damageand had a limited chance of successfully destroyingthe entire tumor.

Medicare’s outpatient imaging program has issued a New Year’s greeting in the form of rules in the 2009 Physician Fee Schedule that raise professional reimbursement rates, expand the discount for contiguous body part imaging to more applications, and introduce anti-markup rules that are far less harsh than those originally proposed.

Recommendations from an Oregon Health and Science Center study have clashed with the findings from a University of Wisconsin trial on the value of polypectomy for small polyps identified during CT colonography. The Oregon study calls for immediate resection while the Wisconsin trial concludes that removal would be costly, risky, and, by definition, unnecessary.

Low-dose PET/CT demonstrates the best sensitivity and specificity for initial staging of lymphoma, according to a study presented on Thursday at the RSNA meeting.

Stressed out at the workstation? You’re not alone. A survey presented at a scientific session Wednesday found relatively high levels of stress across a broad spectrum of radiologists.

A neuroradiologist, a neurosurgeon, and a radiological technologist explained to an RSNA audience how working together to analyze fMR scans has significantly helped them pinpoint hard-to-reach brain tumors and plan delicate surgery, resulting in improved surgical outcomes.

A new configuration of GE Healthcare’s LightSpeed VCT cuts dose by up to 40% during routine imaging, according to the company.

Results from papers released Sunday at the 2008 RSNA suggest that a less rigid approach to treatment, coupled with knowledgeable practitioners and judicious patient selection can improve the commercial prospects of outpatient MRI-guided focused ultrasound ablation of uterine fibroids. There are caveats, though.

As 2008 drew to a close, so did demandin the U.S. for imaging equipment.The timing couldn't be worse.The crisis in the U.S. credit marketsfelled an already stumbling market forcapital equipment such as MR andCT. Vendors began feeling the pinchin the first half of the year, reflecting adownturn that began last year.

Change may be the byword for the historic election of Sen. Barack Obama as president, but the type of change Obama may bring to the White House won't necessarily be accompanied by the uncertainties and anxieties that come with a sharp departure from the past.

A new CT scanner built on Siemens’ unique dual-source x-ray technology promises to dramatically reduce dose and eliminate motion artifact in the chest. Using two x-ray tubes and matching detectors, the Somatom Definition Flash, debuted at RSNA 2008, opens the door to routine scanning of the coronaries, according to the company.

Legal and regulatory issues have a growing impact on how radiologists perform procedures and studies, report results, and structure their practices. Implementing a simple checklist may help to reduce the prospect of being sued for malpractice.

NightHawk switches CEOsSectra and Synthetic MR extend alliance Riverain launches chest software

President-elect Barack Obama’s appointment of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to head the Department of Health and Human Services, combined with a commitment from insurers and a detailed plan from the chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, suggests strongly that healthcare reform will be a top priority for the new administration and the 111th Congress.

A decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services not to expand coverage for carotid artery stenting has stirred mixed responses among physicians who are either outraged with the denial or satisfied that the decision was scientifically sound.

Change may be the byword for the historic election of Sen. Barack Obama as president, but the type of change Obama will bring to the White House won’t necessarily be accompanied by the uncertainties and anxieties that come with a sharp departure from the past.

The 2009 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule reflects the recent tendency of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to propose stringent reforms for in-office imaging and independent diagnostic imaging facilities in the summer and decide against their implementation when the final MPFS rules are published in the fall.The 2009 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule reflects the recent tendency of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to propose stringent reforms for in-office imaging and independent diagnostic imaging facilities in the summer and decide against their implementation when the final MPFS rules are published in the fall.

I have always loved allegory. Asan art form, it can cause us toexamine our beliefs, to reflect onthe influences that govern ourlives.

Advanced imaging procedures covered by Medicare took a beating in 2007 under a congressionally mandated deficit reduction law, falling $1.7 billion, a drop of 12.7%, to $12.1 billion, according to a report from the federal General Accountability Office.

MR vendors have been chipping away at new clinical applications for years. They have pointed to 3T as the means to expand routine practice in ways that are not routine, adding computing engines to handle the massive volumes of data that would gush forth, expanding data pipelines, building out coils with extended channels-in short, creating the infrastructure to support a new diagnostic order. This year, they mean business.

Whether we would like to admit it or not, medical imaging is slowly on its way to becoming a commodity, which has been defined by Wikipedia as "anything for which there is a demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a given market."

During tens of thousands of patient consultations every day, physicians make bad decisions about ordering diagnostic imaging. They may prescribe brain MRI because it is faster to write an order than to conduct a routine neurological exam. They may call for an abdominal CT without realizing that diagnostic ultrasound is cheaper and equally effective.