Dear AuntMinnie Member,
The Joint Commission's sentinel alert last week on the potential dangers of medical radiation carried with it a reminder for many U.S. imaging facilities: New federal regulations requiring sites to be accredited in order to receive Medicare reimbursement are just a few months away.
We explore the accreditation requirements this week in the newest installment of our Leaders in Imaging series, found in our Imaging Leaders Digital Community. Associate editor Kate Madden Yee spoke with Pamela Wilcox, the American College of Radiology's assistant executive director for quality and safety, on just what will be required in January 2012 by the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) of 2008.
Ms. Wilcox states that imaging sites should have started the accreditation process by July 1 in order to meet the deadline. Learn more about MIPPA accreditation and what the ACR is doing to help sites comply by clicking here, or visit the community at leaders.auntminnie.com.
VA speeds import of prior imaging exams
In other news, we're featuring a pair of articles this week in our PACS Digital Community that highlight new developments in digital image management.
Our first article profiles a software application developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to import external prior imaging studies into the VA's PACS network. Based on the DICOM standard, the app now enables VA radiologists to import priors with less than a minute of manual effort, compared with 10 to 30 minutes under the previous process. Find out how they did it by clicking here.
In our second article, we report on the experience of Greek researchers who eschewed commercial PACS software in favor of open-source applications for their digital subtraction angiography lab. What's more, they used virtualization software to minimize installation and maintenance costs.
How did the installation go? Find out what users of the software thought by clicking here, or visit the PACS Digital Community at pacs.auntminnie.com.
