The Mayo Clinic is leading a collaborative effort to spur a national protocol to help prevent the overuse and misuse of imaging in children.

Concern comes with any new process or system change in healthcare, and the increasing use of online patient portals in radiology is no exception. However, worries about patient anxiety, an uptick in office phone calls or misinterpretation of reports seem to have been kept at bay, as the adoption of portals is offering a host of promising benefits for patients and radiologists alike. 

Let’s say you need an MRI of your lower back (and so we’re heeding the Choosing Wisely recommendations from the American College of Physicians, we’ll say it’s for some specific suspected abnormality and not just non-specific back pain). How much is that going to cost? 

A child with head trauma who briefly lost consciousness but has no other signs or symptoms related to the head trauma is unlikely to have sustained a serious brain injury. In these cases, CT scans of the head are not routinely required, according to a study published online July 7 in JAMA Pediatrics.

While after-hours radiology staff coverage in U.S. academic emergency departments (EDs) is expanding, nearly three-quarters of programs still exclusively use preliminary interpretation for some overnight hours, according to a survey of program directors of neuroradiology fellowship programs.

The majority of community hospitals in the U.S. have pediatric dose reduction protocols for head CT, though there is some variation based on hospital characteristics and also differences in the utilization of protective shielding, according to a study published in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

President Barack Obama will nominate Bob McDonald, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, as the next secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Trimming patient wait times, improving satisfaction with exam explanations, training staff to deliver difficult news and involving patients more extensively in the decision-making process are all signs of a practice that has made a commitment to patient-centered care in radiology.