Dear AuntMinnie Member,
PACS may be a great productivity tool, but it appears to work better for some modalities than others. That seems to be the message from a new study in which nearly half of radiologists said they were disappointed with much of the functionality of ultrasound tools available on their PACS software.
Researchers from Tennessee surveyed radiologists regarding their satisfaction with ultrasound PACS functionality, comparing it to satisfaction levels for other modalities, according to a story by senior editor Erik L. Ridley in our PACS Digital Community. They found that ultrasound scored next to the bottom in terms of user satisfaction, far below most other imaging modalities and ahead of only nuclear medicine.
What accounts for the unhappiness? And what kind of ultrasound features do radiologists want from their PACS software? To find out, click here.
Carotid US predicts cardiac risk
In other news, a study published this week indicates that adding ultrasound exams of carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) to traditional risk factor analysis might provide a better way of determining which patients will go on to have adverse cardiac events.
Researchers from Texas said that adding CIMT scans to traditional criteria such as the Framingham risk score enabled them to stratify risk in a population of more than 13,000 patients who were followed for more than 15 years. Ultrasound CIMT studies resulted in the reclassification of many patients into lower-risk groups.
The researchers believe the results may lead to the fine-tuning of ultrasound as a screening tool for cardiac risk. Find out how by clicking here, or visit our Cardiac Imaging Digital Community at cardiac.auntminnie.com.
