Imaging archives (VNA) and the cloud will be king

Providers are looking to vendor-neutral archives (VNA) and the scalability of the cloud to create a centralized store for physician productivity and care. Dr. Keith Hentel, executive vice chairman, department of Radiology, Weill Cornell Medicine sees cloud VNA as a powerful way to create a unified environment, with more complete access to data for physicians. Oftentimes, there are various data forms that don't fit in the traditional electronic medical record and yet still must be organized in the timeline of events that happened to a patient for optimal care.


Hentel says, "Our physicians want to see the compendium of multimedia on a patient in one unified environment. We're going to be investing a lot in our VNA, to help combine radiological imaging data with, perhaps, dermatological, or endoscopic data, and their EKG's."

Consumers will take a more active role in questioning health data privacy and use

It's one thing when we're sacrificing our privacy on Facebook for convenience and connectivity. It's quite another when it comes to our health. There is much talk about how AI will radically transform health care, using big data – our data – to find new cures and insights. But with all the excitement comes critical issues surrounding data use and ownership.

What is the right regulatory balance that maximizes positive patient outcomes? How can we, as patients, understand our rights and what happens to our data in this brave new world? Transparency will be a central factor in this debate. Health care consumers will take an active role in questioning how our data is being used, to be able to make informed decisions about that use.

There is no doubt we are on the path toward a whole new realm of medical ethics, and the call to action is on us, the human product, to hold our health care institutions to the high level of transparency this brave new world demands.

Informatics becomes the hottest, fastest growing speciality

With the changing face of regulations like MACRA, MIPS, and PAMA, value-based health care models continue to rise over fee-for-service. Keeping your facility in line with new patient-centric regulations means leveraging informatics to optimize and streamline the flow of medical data and imaging across radiology and beyond. Especially with all the exciting potential of deep learning technology and AI.

Dr. Krishna Juluru, director of Imaging Informatics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center says that informatics has become a key area at the center of excellence, and he knows, "to the last hour or so, how many scans are being done, at what facilities within Memorial those scans are being performed, what body parts are involved, what subspecialties are involved, and more." Their current initiative focuses on expanding measurements by analyzing referral patterns to ensure they are providing strong referring physician and patient service.

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