The race is on to develop mobile applications that empower patients to take more responsibility for their own care. Although there is a big opportunity to build new devices that improve care through self-management, its important to consider human behavior in of all this, said Dan Feinberg, director of the health informatics graduate program at Northeastern University in Boston. 

Physicians who own their own MRI systems order significantly more scans than physicians without in-office MRIs, with substantial jumps in self-referral and patient costs occurring immediately after the acquisition of the scanners, according to a study in the December edition of Health Affairs.

Quest International, an IT and supply chain services organization, has signed an authorized channel partner agreement with Carestream Health for its PACS, RIS, mammography systems and e-health managed services.

Intrinsic susceptibility-weighted breast MRI may provide data about blood volume in women with primary breast cancer and offer a way to evaluate changes in tumor oxygenation in response to chemotherapy, according to a study published in the December edition of Radiology.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed red flag legislation previously approved by the Senate allowing physicians to be exempt from anti-identity theft requirements that creditors such as banks follow.

Mobile devices may work well for consultation, but are too small to be used for routine primary diagnosis. Security and calibration issues remain unsettled, and the FDA has not yet decided how to handle these devices, David Hirschorn, MD, said Nov. 29 during a presentation at the 96th annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Two-thirds of employees expose sensitive data outside the workplace some even exposing highly regulated and confidential information such as customer credit card and social security numbers information, according to a visual data breach survey from People Security, commissioned by 3M.

Scottsdale Healthcare, a community-based nonprofit health system in Scottsdale, Ariz., is offering e-health service company Stat Health's Stat Doctors as a supplemental health and wellness tool for Scottsdale Healthcare's employees and their covered dependents.