Philips

Mobile C-arms have become a popular option in many operating rooms (ORs) across the nation as healthcare organizations look to save space and money. According to Klaus Hörndler, managing director of Ziehm Imaging, “ORs in hospitals are becoming ever smaller, while more devices are being used inside them.” Because mobile C-arms are smaller, lighter and more easily maneuvered than fixed angiography systems, they provided an effective solution. At a fraction of the cost of fixed angiography, these systems are also a good option for budget-conscious facilities that have limited financial resources or are experiencing budget cuts. 

Interoperability, mobile connectivity and technologies that drive real-time actionable information at the point of care will be the focus of health information technology (IT) investments in 2014. This is according to the results of a new healthcare leadership survey released by Philips Healthcare.

The four MRI vendors fully ranked by KLAS are all within five points of each other as the MRI market becomes increasingly competitive. The newly released KLAS report MRI 2013: Sorting through the Noise examines what differentiates these vendors from one another, including their strengths and weaknesses. 

Advancements in technologies are paving the way for many healthcare providers to connect with patients outside their hospitals more quickly and efficiently. For cardiology departments, technologies that allow for video collaboration, rapid transmission of scans and images and other forms of telemedicine are supporting the initiative to improve productivity, an initiative many are striving for as the U.S. healthcare landscape continues reform.

Several industries have used cloud solutions for many years, but cloud computing only recently started to be used in healthcare. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cloud computing is defined as “a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”¹ As more and more healthcare organizations (HCOs) adopt electronic medical records (EMRs), the cloud database has offered an efficient solution for image sharing, particularly in radiology where it is bridging the gap between referring physicians and radiologists.