Apollo has entered into a strategic alliance with Dell to provide a system to manage, retrieve and share clinical multimedia images and data.

GE Healthcare IT and Microsoft will demonstrate at HIMSS12 the future product capabilities of their 50-50 venture, a new company to be named Caradigm.

McKesson (Booth 2545) and RelayHealth (Booth 3618) are highlighting their Better Health 2020 initiative, which seeks to address todays healthcare issuesfrom cost reduction to care coordination to managing riskat the 2012 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference and exhibition in Las Vegas, Feb. 20-24.

Value, in imaging, is a difficult concept. In an ideal healthcare model, an imaging study provides useful data to inform diagnosis and decision-making without incurring excessive current or downstream costs.

If mergers and acquisitions are signs of health within a given industry, the healthcare products-and-services sector is in fighting condition despite a punishing economy; and the medical device segment is leading the way.

Health information exchanges (HIEs) promise to improve patient care and trim costs by providing access to patient data across organizations ... if they can remain sustainable. Yet, integrating a key component of patient dataimagesinto the HIE has proven to be problematic and plagued by technical and privacy hurdles.

New technologies often follow a meandering path to clinical use. Adoption may be accelerated, either by a breakthrough clinical study validating its use or grants or other incentives designed to spur adoption. Conversely, technological innovations may sputter and stumble, owing to financial, technical or regulatory barriers.

EMRs in the clouds promise to reduce operational costs and maximize quality improvement initiatives. But, is the technology ready for prime time?