Healthcare systems, hospitals and healthcare entities are more and more discovering their needs for an enterprise imaging (EI) strategy. As we are learning, imaging markets have been experiencing explosive growth due to advances in functional imaging technology and exploration of molecular imaging targets for diagnosis and therapy. 

As the power of information technology expands, the healthcare system has begun to shrink. Integrated IT systems are allowing providers to communicate across an enterprise like never before.

At ProMedica, a 13-hospital system serving northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan, the lineup of clinical departments soon to benefit from leadership’s decision to expand a long-installed radiology PACS into an enterprise VNA practically reads like a who’s who of the entire system. Cardiology, pathology and ophthalmology are on line or in line to be soon. So too are dermatology, wound care, maternal-fetal medicine, outpatient physician practices and more.

Despite its immense institutional know-how and its pure heft—11 hospitals, 5,000 medical staffers, $4 billion in net revenues—the Hospital Corporation of America’s multi-state, Denver-based Continental Division still found itself sending CDs and printouts via, among other low-tech image-sharing options, the chests of patients in ambulances and helicopters.

Clinical Innovation + Technology was on hand at HIMSS14 to cover healthcare IT trends. We stopped in the Vital Images booth to learn more about images and the EMR.

At a roundtable discussion during the June CMIO Summit in Boston, four physician IT leaders brainstormed on how to improve healthcare quality, create usable data and engage patients in their own care. Sponsored by an educational grant from Oracle