Changing demographics and industry dynamics continue to present challenges in medical imaging. Aging populations drive higher volumes of imaging studies for increasingly complex diagnoses. Significantly larger imaging studies cause longer reading times for clinicians and greater costs for data storage and computing capacity. That burden is doubled by complex legacy IT infrastructures and inefficient workflows. Clinicians, care teams, and patients themselves expect access to the patient’s complete information, at any time, from any location and device, which is made more complicated by fragmented and siloed patient data. Government regulations, such as the 21st Century Cures Act, add more pressure to imaging organizations.
As imaging leaders strive to meet these challenges, technology vendors have introduced innovations to current systems, such as PACS for radiology, CVIS for cardiology, and hemodynamics reporting tools. These innovations offer improved reliability, accessibility, and speed to diagnosis.
And, the emergence of new technologies, such as cloud-based solutions, artificial intelligence, and machine learning (AI/ML) applications, requires imaging teams to balance even more choices.
With so many options at their disposal, imaging leaders must navigate to the solutions that meet their needs today and set them up for success tomorrow—with the least possible disruption to the daily operations or legacy systems they rely on.
