The federal government began doling out Meaningful Use incentive payments to doctors this year. The program could mean substantial payments for some. Those who adopt electronic health records stand to earn $44,000 over the life of the program. While these incentives are driving providers to invest in IT, some researchers think it comes at a cost to PACS vendors. A market research report from Millennium Research Group, published in February, argued that these vendors will scrap over a "shrinking pie" as more money is spent on getting EHRs up to snuff.

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6. Proton therapy's exclusive club

Since the first commercial proton therapy centers came online in the early 1990s, they have had construction costs that have rivaled the budgets of Hollywood blockbusters. Quoted all-cost figures routinely hover around $200 million (compare that with "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol"'s reported budget of $145 million.) Although new, smaller-footprint technologies now promise substantially cheaper upfront investments, it's still unclear how many more of the high-tech cancer treatment centers the United States will see (currently, there are 9 with a handful in development). In covering a series of talks at the Proton Therapy Centers conference in February, we reported on conservative projections that the U.S. will be home to no more than 20 or 30 such centers over the next decade, as capital costs have rocketed.

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5. FDA's medical device approval process annoys everyone

The Food and Drug Administration's approval process for moderate-risk medical devices, called the 510(k) process, pleases almost nobody. Industry thinks it's slow, cumbersome and inconsistent, while consumer advocates complain that it fails to protect patients from unsafe devices. At the beginning of the year, the agency unveiled a slew of changes it's making to the 35-year-old process, an update on proposals it first floated in summer 2010. But the updates still pretty much irked a lot of people, with Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, saying the agency was still not being "forceful enough about improving the safety and effectiveness of new devices."

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4. NYC women have long wait for mammograms

A New York City audit found long wait times for mammograms at some hospitals in the city. At one hospital, women reportedly had to wait around five months before they could get a scan. All told, about three of the nine hospitals inspected had waiting times longer than the system's two-week maximum, according to the audit, which was carried out by City Comptroller John C. Liu's office. But the data came from fiscal 2009, and the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the hospitals, said it was all out-of-date, and improvements had been made since the audit was done. "That means that the great majority of HHC patients are able to receive mammography within the 14-day target, even some on the same day of request," HHC said.

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