Continuous improvement is not about the things you do wellthats work. Continuous improvement is about removing the things that get in the way of your work. The headaches, the things that slow you down, thats what continuous improvement is all about, observes Bruce Hamilton, president of GMBP, a strategic consulting firm.

Originally hailed as a practice-extending boon for overworked radiologists, teleradiology has faced increasing fire and fury in the last 12 to 18 months. As the major players grow larger, swallowing other teleradiology providers and building affiliations with local practices, rad practices are concerned that they, too, may be bait for teleradiology companies.

Alicia Vasquez is president of the Radiology Business Management Association (RBMA) Board of Directors and practice administrator for Arcadia Radiology Medical Group (ARMG), an eight-physician practice in Arcadia, Calif. Health Imaging & IT met with Vasquez to discuss key issues shaping the business of radiology.

As healthcare policies and institutions begin a dramatic transition in the U.S., the University of Indiana School of Medicine has begun offering its radiology residents a business school elective course, aimed at training physicians in leadership as well as practice and department management, as reported in a study published online in Academic Radiology.

The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has selected Authentidate Holding, a provider of health information exchange (HIE) and telehealth tools, as a supplier for its nationwide home telehealth services program.

Methodist University Hospital has installed Siemens Healthcare Artis zeego and Artis zee biplane imaging technologies in its new neurovascular and cardiovascular center.

CHICAGOCoding is essential to helping gain proper reimbursement during the billing process; however, proper documentation may actually be the key to optimizing revenue and capturing patients' acuity and severity of disease, according to a poster presentation last week at the annual leadership conference of the American College of Cardiovascular Administrators.

The vast majority of trauma centers utilize pediatric-specific CT radiation dose protocols, and yet, the effective doses administered for head CTs in Washington state varied by a factor of as much as ten within and between different trauma center levels, according to a study published in the April issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.