Medical Imaging Blog

RIS

How an Effective Radiology Information System Improves Efficiency

Radiology information system - RISA comprehensive radiology information system (RIS) can make a medical imaging workplace much more efficient.

That’s one of the conclusions of Ramin Khorasani, a radiologist from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, in a recent Journal of the American College of Radiology article.

Khorasani argues that articulating well thought-out imaging protocols can reduce unnecessary follow-up medical imaging by facilitating improvement in initial diagnoses. One key to good protocols, he says, is good IT – and that includes an RIS.

Khorasani makes a few specific recommendations for improving protocols:

Continue Reading: How an Effective Radiology Information System Improves Efficiency

What’s Hip: The Latest Medical Imaging Trends

Medical Imaging trends, PACS, RISIf you haven’t seen the results from Health Imaging’s latest “Top Trends” survey, here are the highlights:

  • Declining Revenues. This was the #1 business priority for physician group practices, imaging centers, and community hospitals. Cuts in Medicare and insurance company reimbursements are driving down revenues. The good news: many medical imaging practices are becoming more efficient, improving their marketing efforts, and adding new services to compensate.
  • Improving Customer Satisfaction. This was the #1 business priority for academic medical centers and multi-hospital organizations.
Continue Reading: What’s Hip: The Latest Medical Imaging Trends

PACS Market Swings Toward Upgrades and Replacements

PACS , RIS, HISBack in May, we noted that the PACS market was growing steadily and that a significant portion would probably be in replacements and upgrades.

It turns out that we were right.

Here are the pertinent numbers from market research conducted by IMV’s Medical Information Division:

  • 87 percent. That’s the percentage of expenditures involving PACS that’s going toward upgrading existing PACS systems.
  • 85 percent. That’s the percentage of full-system PACS purchases that were replacement systems (meaning that just 15 percent were from first-time PACS buyers).
Continue Reading: PACS Market Swings Toward Upgrades and Replacements

Seven Features Every RIS Must Have

RIS - Radiology information systemThese days, it’s almost impossible to imagine a medical imaging practice without a radiology information system (RIS). Unfortunately, it’s quite easy to imagine practices with a sub-standard RIS. Medical imaging practices should look for these seven features in an RIS before buying or upgrading one:

  • Pre-Loaded and Customizable Tables. No one in a radiology department has time to create all the tables the department needs, which is why an RIS should come with the most common tables pre-loaded. But it should also allow the department to easily manipulate basic templates to meet its unique needs. 
Continue Reading: Seven Features Every RIS Must Have

Electronic Medical Imaging Efficiency

Medical Imaging efficiencyPaper + people = inefficiency. That’s what Paul Chang discovered.

Chang is professor and vice chairman of radiology informatics and medical director of enterprise imaging at University of Chicago Hospitals. Convinced that his medical center’s medical imaging throughput could be improved, he and some colleagues set out to find the areas that slowed the turnaround from a physician’s order to the time he or she has the radiologist’s report.

Continue Reading: Electronic Medical Imaging Efficiency

Effective Teleradiology

teleradiology workflowIn a previous post, Teleradiology: A New Frontier in Medical Imaging, we wrote about the “new” phenomenon of teleradiology and how it’s changed medical imaging for the better. In this post, we want to lay out the basics of an effective teleradiology system.

Hardware and Software

Effective teleradiology demands:

  • A web-based 3D PACS (to allow medical imaging professionals to read all kinds of images)
  • An RIS, preferably with speech-recognition technology
  • Integration with the healthcare organization’s other software
  • Secure – that is, includes strong security features – storage and transmission of images and patient information
Continue Reading: Effective Teleradiology

Teleradiology: A New Frontier in Medical Imaging

Medical Imaging

When you think about it, the supposedly new discipline of “teleradiology” isn’t all that new. Radiologists and other medical imaging professionals have been consulting over the phone for years.

What’s new, of course, is technology that allows organizations to set up sophisticated medical imaging systems that include the ability to send and receive images and commentary over vast distances in virtually no time at all. Consider: just 20 years ago, if a medical imaging professional wanted to consult with another one 50 miles away, he or she would have to make a copy of the image, have it sent securely by mail or courier, wait for it to arrive, and then schedule a time to discuss the image – all while hoping that nothing disrupted any of these steps. If nothing did, there was still the hassle of talking about an image without having an easy common reference.

Continue Reading: Teleradiology: A New Frontier in Medical Imaging

RSNAVideo: We’re More than a PACS and EHR Provider

If you missed us at the recent RSNA meeting, don’t worry.  You can still find out about what McKesson Medical Imaging offers through this short video of Marc Crowder, our vice president of Solution Consulting for Radiology and Cardiology, which was taken at the conference.

 

Marc Crowder, VP, Solution Consulting, Radiology/Cardiology, McKesson from MedicExchange on Vimeo.

Crowder points out that McKesson is more than a company which produces PACS and EHRs. We also offer professional services like hosted storage, staff augmentation, and healthcare IT consulting. And many people don’t know that our PACS comes with an embedded radiology information system (RIS) and also fosters decision support through its access to thousands of case studies and expert diagnostic opinions from around the world.

Continue Reading: RSNAVideo: We’re More than a PACS and EHR Provider

Radiology Information System (RIS) Market to Reach $415.8 million by 2013

The future looks bright for diagnostic imaging.

According to a report from ReportLinker, worldwide diagnostic imaging and Radiology Information System (RIS) markets will reach $415.8 million by 2013. Moreover, as RIS systems are integrated with electronic patient records, market growth may be even stronger.

The ability to identify additional diseases at an earlier stage through diagnostic imaging will stimulate the demand for information management systems.

The report pinpoints key drivers of diagnostic imaging and radiology information system market growth, including:

  • Lower costs
  • Improved efficiency
  • Complete audit trails
  • Centralized patient information
  • Help to achieve HIPAA compliance
Continue Reading: Radiology Information System (RIS) Market to Reach $415.8 million by 2013

Patients Demand Online Access to Radiology Results

Radiology Information Systems (RIS) have come a long way in streamlining tasks and providing 24/7 access to radiology results for physicians across an enterprise.

But results from a recent Wake Forest University School of Medicine study show there still may be one missing piece of the puzzle. According to the study, many patients are dissatisfied with the lack of detail in MRI, CT scan and ultrasound test results – as well as the amount of time it takes to receive results.

Patients in the study want online access to radiology results as soon as they are available to enable them to:

Continue Reading: Patients Demand Online Access to Radiology Results
« Older Entries