Following last week’s advisory from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warning that four medical-imaging systems made by Siemens may be vulnerable to cyberattack, the company has announced it will issue software fixes by the end of this month.

Washington, D.C.—Today the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) applauded the U.S. Senate for its passage of the reauthorization of the Medical Device User Fee Act (MDUFA IV). This legislation builds on the progress from the 2012 user fee agreement to further improve the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) device review process while maintaining its robust standards for patient safety.

Searching three years’ worth of physicians’ notes in their academic medical center’s EMR, researchers at NYU Langone found that many informal consultations between referrers and radiologists had been captured incompletely or inadequately, with potential implications for patient management. In a paper published online in the American Journal of Roentgenology, they recommend radiology practices draw up policies to head off such communications lapses.

Upon examining various performance metrics on their MRI patient throughput, members of the radiology department at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found they were losing close to one-third of their time to delays, bottlenecks or other avoidable inefficiencies.

After implementing an established rule for selecting head CT for trauma patients, a 13-site set of Kaiser Permanente community EDs in Southern California reduced avoidable head CT utilization by 5.3 percent while improving their performance on injury identification, according to a study published online July 21 in Annals of Emergency Medicine.

It’s no secret that radiology ranks among the medical specialties with the highest mean markups on list prices. However, a new review of Medicare data on prices listed and payments made shows that, far from being arbitrarily set—as is often assumed if not alleged—many of radiology’s highest prices reflect real-world, case-by-case factors involving heightened risk, greater clinical complexity and increased need for subspecialized expertise.

Philips has announced it is acquiring Germany-based TomTec Imaging Systems, primarily to increase its strength in cardiac ultrasound markets.

Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health, affiliated with Thomas Jefferson University, is making room in 13 facilities for 100 or so GE Healthcare employees to move in and work on site. And that may be just the start of the newly blossoming relationship.