A good RIS is almost essential to running and managing a radiologybusiness today—with imaging practices and departments often operatingin more than one location and with a premium on everyone’s time, fromreport turn-around to scheduling efficiency.

While the demand for immediate transmission of digital images is high,and radiologic image compression offers a reduction in data volume, thedebate continues as to whether there is degradation in diagnostic imagequality. With storage prices dropping, many still question whetherimage compression is even necessary.

An ongoing trend to consolidate clinical information at the pointof patient care, the need to minimize equipment and system downtime,and growing interest in tracking trends and patterns are a few of thefactors driving the use of digital dashboards in radiology. Productsdesigned for specific roles within the imaging chain are assistingpractices, hospitals and imaging centers with the management of volumeand growth. Meanwhile, further developments are in the works.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Friday issued a proposed rule that would allow the electronic prescribing of controlled substances. The agency will accept public comments until Sept. 25.

The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Wednesday approvedthe $575 million health IT bill to speed the adoption of EHRs. Theapproval came one day after House Energy and Commerce Chairman JohnDingell, D-Mich., and ranking member Joe Barton, R-Texas, introducedthe legislation to the subcommittee.

AT&T, Microsoft and Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware, have partnered in the development of health information exchange (HIE) for patients and practitioners in the United States.

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology(CCHIT) has published its approved final criteria for certification ofinpatient and emergency department (ED) EHR products, as well as anenterprise EHR certification for vendors that provide ambulatory,inpatient and ED EHRs that are interoperable.

In the busy world of radiology, automated worklist tools help ensurethat the right study gets to the right radiologist in the least amountof time. For example, a worklist will direct an ordered exam toevaluate a patient’s meniscus to a musculoskeletal radiologist, while acranial exam will go to a neuroradiologist for interpretation. However,an element lacking from the parsing capabilities of most worklists isthe capability to filter exam interpretation assignments on the basisof insurance reimbursement.