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Health care IT has become essential for delivering care, but how many organizations are getting the most out of it? A recent paper looks at policy changes that can improve health care delivery and patient access to medical records. Read on to find out what can be done to improve health IT. — Dave Yeager, editor How to ‘Cross the Health IT Chasm’ The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) recently held a briefing on Capitol Hill to unveil the findings and recommendations from a new paper, detailing ways that policymakers should focus on liberating data for patients, improving interoperability for clinicians, and enhancing the capacity for research and innovation to impact patient care. The paper, “Crossing the Health IT Chasm: Considerations and Policy Recommendations to Overcome Current Challenges and Enable Value-based Care,” is published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association in tandem with the briefing. Over the last five years, the US health care system has made a digital transformation faster than any other industry in modern times. However, today’s health IT infrastructure remains largely a collection of systems unable to deliver on promised benefits. “Crossing the Health IT Chasm” looks at our current health care landscape through the lenses of a patient, a provider, and the research and innovation community. It includes 17 policy recommendations to help health IT better support a value-based system of health, care, and research. Paper authors developed a vignette to illustrate the demands on health IT from multiple points of view, focusing recommendations to address key gaps between the idealized and current experience for these three perspectives. The vignette envisions a not-too-distant future where patients access and transmit medical records from previous providers to new ones or providers can prescribe the use of mobile health applications to help patients control their conditions. The vignette also demonstrates how health IT makes clinical documentation simpler and identifying potential patients for a clinical trial easier. These scenarios are possible using today’s health IT, but they are far from commonplace. Specific policies are needed to accomplish the following: enable better patient access to data in a computable format; improve interoperability in a context of application programming interfaces (APIs); simplify clinical documentation for reimbursement and quality measurement; more readily engage patients in research; and foster an ecosystem of safe, effective, and secure health applications.  Full story »   e-News Exclusive Substance With Style Flipping Good Imaging Reporter’s Notebook: SIR 2017 Bright Ideas Need an MRI? It Pays to Shop Around. Big Time. New Nuclear MR Technique Offers 'Molecular Window' Into Living Organisms Mercedes-Benz Uses X-Ray Tech to Improve Crash Safety CT Scans Detail Marine Mammals’ Reproductive Systems Worth Repeating Substance With Style Despite advances in imaging technology over the last 100-plus years, radiology reports are still largely words only. Should radiologists provide multimedia reports? Read more » Flipping Good Imaging Magnetic particle imaging offers an exciting new option for medical diagnostics and treatment. Read more » Reporter’s Notebook: SIR 2017 Read about the latest research findings presented at the 2017 Society of Interventional Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington, D.C. Read more » Bright Ideas Take a look at the latest trends in medical displays and monitors. Read more »

Need an MRI? It Pays to Shop Around. Big Time. Amino, a health care data company, has conducted a price difference analysis for MRIs in hospitals vs freestanding imaging centers in the United States. The anaylsis, as reported by USA Today, reveals that the costs vary, sometimes by thousands of dollars, and freestanding MRI centers tend to be considerably cheaper than hospital MRIs. New Nuclear MR Technique Offers 'Molecular Window' Into Living Organisms Researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough have developed a new nuclear MR technique to obtain a high-resolution profile of molecules present inside a living organism. Traditional nuclear MR techniques struggled to produce high-quality profiles due to magnetic distortion. Mercedes-Benz Uses X-Ray Tech to Improve Crash Safety The German automaker has implemented the use of high-speed X-ray technology to enable engineers to analyze key structural components midcrash, monitor crash performance, and improve overall occupant safety. The automaker says the images are of “razor-sharp quality” with the ability to focus on specific areas of a car’s structure, according to autofocus.ca. CT Scans Detail Marine Mammals’ Reproductive Systems Dara Orbach, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, presented 3D CT scans of several marine mammal reproductive systems at this year’s Experimental Biology meeting in Chicago. The use of CT scans to create 3D models, as reported by National Geographic, has advanced the scientific study of marine reproduction. “Now, more and more, with DNA technology and with geochemical technology and [CT] scanning, we’re able to study these fossils as living things.” — Richard Laub, PhD,a retired curator from the Buffalo Museum of Science, commenting on the benefits of using the CT scanner inside the Great Lakes Medical Imaging office in Amherst, New York, to study the remains of an 11,000-year-old mastodon, as reported by WGRZ-TV Radiology Today's online gift shop features a wide variety of items for radiology professionals. Choose from t-shirts, journals, clocks, buttons, mouse pads, and much more! Check out our secure online shop today or call toll-free 877-809-1659 for easy and fast ordering.   Have a product or service you want to market to radiology professionals or an open position that you need to fill quickly? Radiology Today offers many flexible advertising programs designed to maximize your results. From print advertising to e-newsletter sponsorships, website advertising to direct mail opportunities, Radiology Today helps achieve your goals. E-mail our experienced account executives today for more information or call 800-278-4400! Coming up in our June issue is our Summer Product Showcase. Contact sales for more information. AlliedHealthCareers.com is the premier online resource to recruit radiology professionals. Post your open positions, view résumés, and showcase your facility's offerings all at AlliedHealthCareers.com! Radiology Today's Physician Recruitment Center gives physician recruiters a powerful tool to satisfy their current needs. An ideal option for recruiters looking to fill partnership opportunities, academic appointments, and hospital staff positions, the Physician Recruitment Center is visited regularly by radiologists and other imaging physicians during their frequent trips to our website for the best coverage of industry news and trends. Set up Job Alerts and create your online Résumé to let potential employers find you today!