GE Healthcare has partnered with the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee for an imaging research program to explore the role of 7T MRI technology.

ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, has been awarded a multi-year contract from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to establish the first national Healthcare Horizon Scanning System.

iCAD, a developer of image analysis and workflow technologies for the identification of cancer, has reported a net loss among its third quarter financial results, which ended Sept. 30, reflecting fewer sales.

Hospitals nationwide are scrambling to handle what is literally a growing image problem higher-quality, volume-rich imaging studies are pushing storage needs to the terabyte realm and beyond. Accessing these images from longer-term storage and across systems also is a growing challenge.

Server-side processing permits 3D image manipulation to take place on a central server before being transmitted to a thin client. This is one innovation that will help facilities meet meaningful use criteria regarding the integration of advanced visualization imaging into the EMR. But there are still some technical challenges ahead.

The patient-centered medical home model taps a variety of technologies, entering the care continuum at an earlier stage and potentially providing better integration among providers. However, cultural change can be as big an obstacle as technical challenges, according to early adopters.

Hospitals and medical practices alike are spending more to safeguard patient information, according to the 2010 HIMSS Security Survey, but still spend less than the average in other industries.

Hospitals with fewer than 150 beds are focusing less on traditional community clinical information systems (CIS) vendors and more on large hospital CIS vendors, according to a new KLAS report.