Dear Enterprise Imaging Insider,
After years of delays, mandated use of clinical decision-support (CDS) software for ordering advanced imaging studies for Medicare patients is finally at hand. A one-year grace period without penalties begins on January 1, 2020, with financial penalties for noncompliance scheduled to begin on January 1, 2021.
In a webinar hosted last week by the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM), Dr. Adam Flanders of Thomas Jefferson University, Dr. Richard Bruce of the University of Wisconsin, and Dr. Keith Hentel of Weill Cornell Medicine shared their tips on how to optimize and stabilize CDS at your institution. Part 1 of our coverage of the SIIM webinar is the subject of this edition's Insider Exclusive. Stay tuned for part 2.
Enterprise imaging has been discussed by vendors for years, but it has typically been implemented in a hodgepodge fashion. That's finally starting to change, however. At RSNA 2019, enterprise imaging will be offered on a broader scale, on a single platform with a single user interface, according to Stephen Holloway of market research and consultancy firm Signify Research. The Chicago meeting will also showcase the closing gap between PACS and advanced visualization.
Interoperability in the health sector remains a major challenge, leading many health providers to want to simplify their IT systems and consolidate to fewer software platforms and vendor partners. Some are even considering the electronic medical record (EMR) as a potential candidate to extend into diagnostic imaging. This approach, however, comes with some significant challenges, and dedicated imaging IT software is unlikely to be replaced by EMRs anytime soon, according to Holloway.
Despite the progress made in digital image sharing, CDs still remain the primary mechanism for receiving imaging studies performed at other institutions. A team of researchers from Penn Medicine developed an automated workflow process to expedite the handling of these exams. Using their approach, external studies can be uploaded to the PACS with an institutional accession number and exam code within minutes, significantly speeding up access to these exams.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania also investigated the impact of programming their hospital electronic health record system to notify clinicians when patients are due for breast or colorectal cancer screening exams. They found that an automated prompt, or a "nudge," that requires medical assistants to accept or decline an eligible order for breast or colorectal cancer screening exams led to an increase in ordering rates. However, it did not yield a significant improvement in screening completion rate.
Do you have an idea for a story you'd like to see covered in the Enterprise Imaging Community? As always, please feel free to drop me a line.
