By any measure, 2009 has been a rough year for medical imaging. The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that could change Medicare payments for advanced diagnostic imaging procedures, such as MRI, CT, PET and nuclear medicine, through an increase in the equipment utilization rate assumption from 50 percent to 75 percent.

The summer of 2009 has, at long last, come to a close. However, the fiery rhetoric of partisan interests in the on-going debate over healthcare reform shows no sign of cooling down. The current drama over the provision of healthcare is not a new or original topic in the political discourse of the United States.

As you know, investment and enrichment in EMRs is the focus of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009which allocates a whopping $19.2 billion to health IT. The numbers have been well-publicized, with $17.2 billion being funneled through the Medicare and Medicaid programs to help providers adopt EHRs and another $2 billion earmarked for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). Outside the direct contributions to pay for IT systems, there is another $10.4 million in related spending, according to HIMSS, for telecommunications, broadband and telemedicine.

This year, one trend dominates the health imaging market and the entire economy. The lingering and deepening recession stands at the top of the list of items that keep CIOs, hospital and clinical department administrators, and radiologists awake at night. There is at least a spark of hope in the $787 billion U.S. economic stimulus package. So whats in it for imaging, radiology, cardiology and IT? Health Imaging & IT untangles the package, interpreting its implications for the health imaging world.

Community hospitals that add new clinical services to better meet local needs can garner multiple benefits ranging including improved patient care and increased revenue. This month, Health Imaging & IT visits a pair of community hospitals that added new service lines to their portfolio to better meet local needs. Their business models provide a sound roadmap for other sites.

Health imaging is one area of healthcare that has seen an unprecedented surge in utilization in the past decade. It is perhaps the fastest rising medical expenditure in the United States with an annual growth rate of 9 percent, nearly one-third more than the annual increase in general medical expenditures (approximately 6 percent). As such, policy-makers and payors are increasingly demanding evidence-based data to justify the utilization of many types of imaging procedures.