With medical reimbursements under siege and the cost of maintaining a medical practice increasing, it’s inevitable that providers will continue to consolidate or be forced to close their practice. For medical imaging businesses, the additional pressure from the large capital expenditures required, is causing more practices to head for the exit. For firms considering closure, there are a host of legal and business concerns.
If your PACS failed tonight, could you still perform surgery in the morning? Could your radiologists still report imaging studies? Would your hospital operations slow to a crawl?
Since the accelerated acceptance of electronic health records (EHR), brought on by the adoption of the Affordable Care Act, patient records have existed separate and apart from their related medical images. There is no doubt that physicians unanimously believe that an integrated view of your medical image together with the textual description of your symptoms, test results and diagnosis would be more valuable than either of them separately. So, why do they remain detached? Why does EHR PACS integration matter?
Earlier this month, the Obama Administration disclosed that it is working on "an important transition" for Electronic Health Record incentive program. They claim to be working with physicians to make improvements in technology to best support clinicians and their patients. Updates are promised in the coming months.
