HIMSS names SMC a ‘world leader’ in digital pathology and awards the South Korean Healthcare provider Stage 7 DIAM status
Anatomic pathologists and clinical laboratory managers in hospitals know that during surgery, time is of the essence. While the patient is still on the surgical table, biopsies must be sent to the lab to be frozen and sectioned before going to the surgical pathologist for reading. Thus, shortening time to answer for frozen sections is a significant benefit.
This effort in surgical pathology is part of a larger story of the digital transformation underway across all service lines at this hospital. For years, SMC has been on track to become one of the world’s “intelligent hospitals,” and it is succeeding. In February, SMC became the first healthcare provider to achieve Stage 7 in the HIMSS Digital Imaging Adoption Model (DIAM), which “assesses an organization’s capabilities in the delivery of medical imaging,” Healthcare IT News reported.
As pathologists and clinical laboratory leaders know, implementation of digital pathology is no easy feat. So, it’s noteworthy that SMC has brought together disparate technologies to reduce turnaround times, and that the medical center has caught the eye of leading health information technology (HIT) organizations.
“The digital pathology system established by the pathology department and SMC’s information strategy team could be one of the good examples of the fourth industrial revolution model applied to a hospital system,” anatomic pathologist Kee Taek Jang, MD (above), Professor of Pathology, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Samsung Medical Center told Healthcare IT News. Clinical laboratory leaders and surgical pathologists understand the value digital pathology can bring to faster turnaround times. (Photo copyright: Samsung Medical Center.)
Anatomic Pathologists Can Read Frozen Sections on Their Smartphones
Prior to implementation of its 5G digital pathology system, surgeons and their patients waited as much as 20 minutes for anatomic pathologists to traverse SMC’s medical campus to reach the healthcare provider’s cancer center diagnostic reading room, Healthcare IT News reported.
Now, SMC’s integrated digital pathology system—which combines slide scanners, analysis software, and desktop computers with a 5G network—has enabled a “rapid imaging search across the hospital,” Healthcare IT News noted. Surgical pathologists can analyze tissue samples faster and from remote locations on digital devices that are convenient to them at the time, a significant benefit to patient care.
“The system has been effective in reducing the turnaround time as pathologists can now attend to frozen test consultations on their smartphone or tablet device via 5G network anywhere in the hospital,” Jean-Hyoung Lee, SMC’s Manager of IT Infrastructure, told Healthcare IT News which noted these system results:
TAT decreased from 20 minutes to 10 minutes.
Transferring scans of large frozen tissues up to three gigabyte in size is now possible through the 5G network.
Additionally, through the 5G network, pathologists can efficiently access CT scans and MRI data on proton therapy cancer treatments. Prior to the change, the doctors had to download the image files in SMC’s Proton Therapy Center, according to a news release from KT Corporation, a South Korean telecommunications company that began working with SMC on building the 5G-connected digital pathology system in 2019.
DIAM is an approach for gauging an organization’s medical imaging delivery capabilities. To achieve Stage 7—External Image Exchange and Patient Engagement—healthcare providers must also have achieved all capabilities outlined in Stages 5 and 6.
In addition, the following must also have been adopted:
The majority of image-producing service areas are exchanging and/or sharing images and reports and/or clinical notes based on recognized standards with care organizations of all types, including local, regional, or national health information exchanges.
The application(s) used in image-producing service areas support multidisciplinary interactive collaboration.
Patients can make appointments, and access reports, images, and educational content specific to their individual situation online.
Patients are able to electronically upload, download, and share their images.
“This is the most comprehensive use of integrated digital pathology we have seen,” Andrew Pearce, HIMSS VP Analytics and Global Advisory Lead, told Healthcare IT News.
SMC’s Manager of IT Planning Seungho Lim told Healthcare IT News the medical center’s goal is to become “a global advanced intelligent hospital through digital health innovation.” The plan is to offer, he added, “super-gap digital services that prioritize non-contact communication and cutting-edge technology.”
For pathologists and clinical laboratory leaders, SMC’s commitment to 5G to move digital pathology data is compelling. And its recognition by HIMSS could inspire more healthcare organization to make changes in medical laboratory workflows. SMC, and perhaps other South Korean healthcare providers, will likely continue to draw attention for their healthcare IT achievements.
Columbia University’s MediSCAPE enables surgeons to examine tissue structures in vivo and a large-scale clinical trial is planned for later this year
Scientists at Columbia University in New York City have developed a high-speed 3D microscope for diagnosis of cancers and other diseases that they say could eventually replace traditional biopsy and histology “with real-time imaging within the living body.”
The technology is designed to enable in situ tissue analysis. Known as MediSCAPE, the microscope is “capable of capturing images of tissue structures that could guide surgeons to navigate tumors and their boundaries without needing to remove tissues and wait for pathology results,” according to a Columbia University news story.
“The way that biopsy samples are processed hasn’t changed in 100 years, they are cut out, fixed, embedded, sliced, stained with dyes, positioned on a glass slide, and viewed by a pathologist using a simple microscope. This is why it can take days to hear news back about your diagnosis after a biopsy,” said Hillman in the Columbia news story.
“Our 3D microscope overcomes many of the limitations of prior approaches to enable visualization of cellular structures in tissues in the living body. It could give a doctor real-time feedback about what type of tissue they are looking at without the long wait,” she added in I News.
Hillman’s team previously used the technology—originally dubbed SCAPE for “Swept Confocally Aligned Planar Excitation” microscopy—to capture 3D images of neurological activity in living samples of worms, fish, and flies. In their recent study, the researchers tested the technology with human kidney tissue, a human volunteer’s tongue, and a mouse with pancreatic cancer.
“This was something I didn’t expect—that I could actually look at structures in 3D from different angles,” said nephropathologist and study co-author Shana M. Coley, MD, PhD (above), Director, Transplant Translational Research and Multiplex Imaging Center at Arkana Laboratories, in the Columbia news story. At the time of the Columbia study, Coley was an assistant professor at Columbia University and a renal pathologist at the Columbia University Medical Center. “We found many examples where we would not have been able to identify a structure from a 2D section on a histology slide, but in 3D we could clearly see its shape. In renal pathology in particular, where we routinely work with very limited amounts of tissue, the more information we can derive from the sample, the better for delivering more effective patient care,” she added. (Photo copyright: Arkana Laboratories.)
How MediSCAPE Works
Unlike traditional 3D microscopes that use a laser to scan tiny spots of a tissue sample and then assemble those points into a 3D image, the MediSCAPE 3D microscope “illuminates the tissue with a sheet of light—a plane formed by a laser beam that is focused in a special way,” I News reported.
The MediSCAPE microscope thus captures 2D slices which are rapidly stacked into 3D images at a rate of more than 10 volumes per second, according to I News.
“One of the first tissues we looked at was fresh mouse kidney, and we were stunned to see gorgeous structures that looked a lot like what you get with standard histology,” said optical systems engineer and the study’s lead author, Kripa Patel, PhD, in the Columbia news story. “Most importantly, we didn’t add any dyes to the mouse—everything we saw was natural fluorescence in the tissue that is usually too weak to see.
“Our microscope is so efficient that we could see these weak signals well,” she continued, “even though we were also imaging whole 3D volumes at speeds fast enough to rove around in real time, scanning different areas of the tissue as if we were holding a flashlight.”
A big advantage of the technology, Hillman noted, is the ability to scan living tissue in the body.
“Understanding whether tissues are staying healthy and getting good blood supply during surgical procedures is really important,” she said in the Columbia news story. “We also realized that if we don’t have to remove (and kill) tissues to look at them, we can find many more uses for MediSCAPE, even to answer simple questions such as ‘what tissue is this?’ or to navigate around precious nerves. Both of these applications are really important for robotic and laparoscopic surgeries, where surgeons are more limited in their ability to identify and interact with tissues directly.”
Clinical Trials and FDA Clearance
Early versions of the SCAPE microscopes were too large for practical use by surgeons, so Columbia post-doctoral research scientist Wenxuan Liang, PhD, co-author of the study, helped the team develop a smaller version that would fit into an operating room.
Later this year, the researchers plan to launch a large-scale clinical trial, I News reported. The Columbia scientists hope to get clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop a commercialized version of the microscope.
“They will initially seek permission to use it for tumor screening and guidance during operations—a lower and easier class of approval—but ultimately, they hope to be allowed to use it for diagnosis,” Liang wrote.
Charles Evans, PhD, research information manager at Cancer Research UK, told I News, “Using surgical biopsies to confirm a cancer diagnosis can be time-consuming and distressing for patients. And ensuring all the cancerous tissue is removed during surgery can be very challenging unaided.”
He added, “more work will be needed to apply this technique in a device that’s practical for clinicians and to demonstrate whether it can bring benefits for people with cancer, but we look forward to seeing the next steps.”
Will the Light Microscope be Replaced?
In recent years, research teams at various institutions have been developing technologies designed to enhance or even replace the traditional light microscope used daily by anatomic pathologists across the globe.
And digital scanning algorithms for creating whole-slide images (WSIs) that can be analyzed by pathologists on computer screens are gaining in popularity as well.
Such developments may spark a revolution in surgical pathology and could signal the beginning of the end of the light microscope era.
Surgical pathologists should expect to see a steady flow of technologically advanced systems for tissue analysis to be submitted to the FDA for pre-market review and clearance for use in clinical settings. The light microscope may not disappear overnight, but there are a growing number of companies actively developing different technologies they believe can diagnose either or both tissue and digital images of pathology slides with accuracy comparable to a pathologist.
New dichromatic color scale developed by scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory could play a role in how slides are stained and how software color-codes digital pathology images in ways that make it easier for human eyes to recognize structures and features of interest
Clinical laboratories, anatomic pathologists, and other specialized diagnostics providers play an essential role in precision medicine. Imagine, however, performing surgical pathology analysis on slides using displays that cannot recreate—or worse, inaccurately display—a range of colors used in the image being analyzed.
As many as 8% of men and 0.5% of women of Northern European ancestry already experience issues discerning colors in the interfaces, information, and world around them due to red-green color blindness according to the National Eye Institute. This can lead to potential for misreadings and medical errors.
Now, research from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) holds the potential to establish a standard colormap that eliminates the impact of red-green colorblindness on visuals. Surgical pathologists, for example, spend much of their days viewing slides and/or digital pathology images. Thus, any new method of illustrating/coloring/highlighting features of interest could eventually prove to be a useful innovation in the specialty of anatomic pathology.
In completing their research, the PNNL scientists created an open-source tool called Cmaputil that other researchers can use. Could it enable clinicians and laboratory workers to improve the visibility of critical elements in samples, slides, and other visual data formats used daily at medical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups?
PLOS One published details about the development of the colormap and its potential scientific applications in August.
PNNL’s Cividis Color Scale: A Better Alternative to Rainbow Color Scales?
While the typical rainbow color map draws attention to a chart or image, it is not particularly great at conveying information—especially if the reader is color vision deficient (CVD) or color blind. Yet, despite this, rainbow scales are common in everything from local weather reports and news stories to medical images and medical studies.
Jamie Nuñez, lead author of the PLOS One study and a chemical and biological data analyst at PNNL, told Scientific American, “People like to use rainbow because it catches the eye. But once the eye actually gets there, and people are trying to figure out what’s actually going on inside of the image, that’s kind of where it falls apart.” (Photo copyright: University of Washington.)
PNNL scientists started with the viridis colormap due to “its wide range of colors” and “overall sharpness when overlaid with complex images.” They created an open-source software tool capable of taking existing color scales and simulating the visual effect of red-green color blindness using a mathematical model of human sight. Their software adjusts the scale so that color and brightness vary at a steady rate.
Their adaptions resulted in what they call the “cividis colormap.” It is a blue and yellow scale that provides an accurate change in hue and luminance when compared to changes in the data set. Researchers noted that, to their knowledge, this is the first study to mathematically optimize a colormap specifically for viewing by both those with CVD and those with normal vision.
“Here, we present an example CVD-optimized colormap created with this module that is optimized for viewing by those without a CVD as well as those with red-green colorblindness. This colormap, cividis, enables nearly-identical visual-data interpretation to both groups, is perceptually uniform in hue and brightness, and increases in brightness linearly,” the researchers noted in the PLOS One study.
Example above is of a misleading colormap, taken from the PNNL/PLOS One study. An image of yeast cells is shown in gray scale (left), with a rainbow color scale (middle) and as a person with red-green color blindness sees the rainbow image (right). (Photo/caption copyright: Nuñez JR, Anderton CR, Renslow RS (2018) PLoS ONE 13(7): e0199239/Scientific American.)
The PNNL researchers report that the colormap will soon be ready in a number of tools, including:
According to Scientific American, cividis will be added to the color-scale libraries of roughly a dozen software packages.
“While it may take some time for the full scientific community to both be aware of the need to choose appropriate colormaps and agree on preferred colormaps,” PNNL researchers note, “we hope the code we provide here can help with this transition by allowing others to experiment with the different aspects of colormap design and see how the various characteristics of a colormap affect its interpretation.”
They are concerned that the changing color spaces on future displays may make current colormaps and standards obsolete, as they display colors outside the standard sRGB color space. However, the researchers also note that any change to color spaces could result in an increase in color availability and allow cmaputil to create better-optimized color schemes.
How Cividis and Similar Approaches Might Impact Pathology
While the technology was developed with mass spectrometry and fluid flow analysis in mind, it could prove useful for medical laboratories and specialized diagnostics providers as well—in particular, anatomic pathology and surgical pathology labs.
Coverage of a presentation at the 2011 IEEE Information Visualization Conference by Phys.org highlights a similar concept for diagnosing heart disease. By taking 3D representations of arteries using a rainbow colormap and converting them to 2D projections using a dichromatic black to red colormap, Harvard researchers found their HemoVis tool increased diagnostic accuracy from 39% to 91% in their study.
Technologies and techniques designed for scientific applications often find use in healthcare environments. For anatomic and surgical pathologist and other diagnostics providers, the research from PNNL shows promise for adapting the latest data visualization trends to further improve accuracy, efficiency, and accessibility of medical images, samples, and other complex images used daily in the process of diagnosing disease.
Proof-of-concept research investigates whether photoacoustic imaging can be used in place of traditional tissue staining procedures during cancer surgery to determine if all of the tumor has been removed
Determining where breast cancer ends and healthy tissue begins is a critical part of breast cancer surgery. Surgeons are used to working closely during surgery with anatomic pathologists who generate pathology reports that specify the surgical or tumor margin, an area of healthy tissue surrounding a tumor that also must be excised to ensure none of the tumor is left behind. This helps prevent the need for follow-up surgeries and involves quick work on the part of medical laboratories.
Thus, any technology that renders such a pathology report unnecessary, though a boon to surgeons and patients, would impact labs and pathology groups. However, such a technology may soon exist for surgeons to use during breast cancer surgery.
Assessing Tumor Margin with Light During Surgery
A proof-of-concept study undertaken by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSTL) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has been looking at ways photoacoustic and microscopy technologies could enable surgeons to quickly and accurately assess the tumor margin during breast cancer surgeries. The research suggests it could be possible for surgeons to get answers about critical breast tumor margins without employing a clinical laboratory test.
This new technique based on light and sound uses photoacoustic imaging. The researchers scanned a tumor sample and produced images with enough detail to show whether the tumor was completely removed during surgery, a WUSTL news release explained.
The researchers scanned slices of tumors secured from three breast cancer patients. They also compared their results to stained specimens.
The photoacoustic images matched the stained samples in key features, according to the WUSTL news release. And the new technology produced answers in less time than standard analysis techniques. But more research is needed before photoacoustic imaging is used during surgeries, researchers noted.
“This is proof of concept that we can use photoacoustic imaging on breast tissue and get images that look similar to traditional staining methods without any sort of tissue processing,” Novack added.
A new imaging technique based on light and sound produces images doctors can use to distinguish cancerous breast tissue (below the dotted blue line) from normal tissue more quickly than is currently possible. The new technique (right) produces images as detailed and accurate as traditional methods (left) but in less time, according to the researchers. If such technology were eventually approved for clinical use, it would reduce the need for pathologists to analyze frozen sections while a patient was still in surgery. (Caption and photo copyright: WUSTL/Terence T. W. Wong.)
Once ready, this technology may well change how surgeons and pathologists collaborate to treat breast cancer patients and those with other chronic diseases that include growths that must be excised from the body.
Current Pathology Procedures Take Time, Not Always Useful During Cancer Surgery
At present, standard breast cancer operation procedures involve surgical and pathology teams working simultaneously while the breast cancer patient is in surgery.
Excised tissue is frozen (surrounded by a polyethylene glycol solution), sliced into wafers, stained with a dye, and microscopically analyzed by the pathologist in the clinical laboratory to determine if all cancerous tissue has been removed by the surgeon.
“The procedure takes about 10 to 20 minutes. However, freezing of tissue can result in some distortion of cells and some staining artifact. That is why frozen sections are often preliminary—with a final diagnosis based on routine processing of tissue,” according to LabTestsOnline.
Additionally, fatty breast specimens do not make good frozen sections, which requires surgeons to complete procedures uncertain about whether they removed all of the cancer, the researchers noted.
“Right now, we don’t have a good method to assess margins during breast cancer surgeries,” stated Rebecca Aft, MD, PhD, Professor of Surgery at WUSTL and co-senior study author.
Up to 60% of Breast Cancer Patients Require Follow-up Surgeries
More than 250,000 people in the US are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, and about 180,000 elect to undergo surgery to remove the cancer and preserve healthy breast tissue, WUSTL reported. However, between 20% to 60% of patients learn later they need more surgery to have additional tissue removed when follow-up lab analyses suggest tumor cells were evident on the surface of a tissue sample, Caltech noted in a news release.
“What if we could get rid of the waiting? With three-dimensional photoacoustic microscopy, we could analyze the tumor right in the operating room and know immediately whether more tissue needs to be removed,” noted Lihong Wang, PhD, Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering in Caltech’s Division of Engineering and Applied Science. Wang conducted research when he was a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at University of Washington’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.
“Currently, no intraoperative tools can microscopically analyze the entire lumpectomy specimen. To address this critical need, we have laid the foundation for the development of a device that could allow accurate intraoperative margin assessment,” the study authors penned in Science Advances.
What is Photoacoustic Imaging and How Does it Work?
Photoacoustic imaging’s laser pulses create acoustic waves within tissue, which make way for intraoperative images with enough detail to expose cancerous tissue as compared to healthy tissue, explained a Medgadget article.
The graphic above shows elements of the photoacoustic microscopy system for surgical margin imaging developed by researchers at University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis and California Institute of Technology. (Photo Credit: Science Advances)
According to the Caltech news release:
· Photoacoustic imaging (also called photoacoustic microscopy or PAM by the researchers) employs a low energy laser that vibrates a tissue sample;
· Researchers measure ultrasonic waves emitted by the vibrating tissue;
· Photoacoustic microscopy reveals the size of nuclei, which vibrate more intensely than nearby material;
· Larger nuclei and densely packed cells characterize cancer tissue.
“It’s the pattern of cells—their growth pattern, their size, their relationship to one another—that tells us if this is normal tissue or something malignant,” said Deborah Novack, MD, PhD, WUSTL Associate Professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Immunology, and co-senior author on the study.
Whether in surgical suites or emergency departments, technological advancements continue to bring critical information to healthcare providers at the point of care, bypassing traditional medical laboratory procedures that cost more and take longer to return answers. Successful development of this technology would create new clinical collaborations between surgeons and anatomic pathologists while improving patient care.
New study analyzes the dramatic decline in the utilization of imaging diagnostics between 2008 and 2014 and suggests that reductions in imaging use could be the result of changes in federal policy, increased deductibles, and cost-cutting focuses
Anatomic pathologists have experienced sustained cuts to reimbursements for both technical component and professional component services during the past eight to 10 years. But what has not happened to pathology is a 33% decline in the volume of biopsies referred to diagnosis. Yet that is what some studies say has happened to imaging reimbursement since 2006.
Using Medicare data for Part B imaging procedures covering the years 2001 to 2014, researchers at a major university identified that, beginning in 2006, the total reimbursement for imaging procedures declined at a steady rate throughout the following eight years covered by the study. It is unclear what implications the finding of this study of imaging utilization might predict for the utilization of advance anatomic pathology services.
Routine Use of Imaging in Diagnostics is Slowing Down
The researchers calculated utilization rates for “advanced” imaging modalities and component relative value unit (RVU) rates for all imaging modalities. They determined that trends in imaging rates and RVU rates rose between 2000 and 2008, but then sharply declined from 2008 to 2014. The researchers theorized that the reduction might have been due to changes in federal policy, increasing deductibles, and focus on cost-cutting by hospitals and healthcare providers.
Levin, along with Thomas Jefferson University associates Vijay M. Rao, MD, FACR, current Chair of Radiology, and Laurence Parker, PhD, Associate Professor of Radiology; and University of Wisconsin-Madison statistics Professor Charles D. Palit, PhD, argue that the decrease in imaging orders might reduce diagnostic costs, but also could negatively impact surgical pathologists, radiologists, medical researchers, and patients themselves.
In a Modern Healthcare article, Levin states that the reduction in utilization of imaging and radiology could be a slippery slope leading to decreased access to life-saving diagnostic tools that could leave patients “not getting the scans they probably need.”
What’s Fueling the Multi-Year Decline in Utilization of Imaging and Radiology?
Using data acquired from Medicare part B databases, the authors reported that total reimbursements for NDI peaked at $11.9 billion in 2006, but saw a steep decline of 33% to just over $8 billion in 2015. They attribute some of this decline as a result of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which went into effect in 2007, as well as other cuts to NDI reimbursement funding. Reimbursement to radiologists, according to Levin et al, dropped by more than 19.5%, and reimbursement to cardiologists dropped nearly 45% between 2006 and 2015.
Surgical pathologists may see parallels in the total reimbursement for imaging during the years 2002-2015 compared to pathology technical component and professional component reimbursement during those same years. Taken from the Thomas Jefferson University study, the graphic above shows “total Part B payments for non-invasive diagnostic imaging to all physicians under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, 2002 to 2015. Vertical axis shows billions of dollars. The abrupt decline in 2007 was due to the Deficit Reduction Act. The declines in 2009, 2010, and 2011 were due largely to code bundling in, respectively, transthoracic echocardiography, radionuclide myocardial perfusion imaging, and CT of the abdomen and pelvis.” (Caption and image copyright: Thomas Jefferson University.)
According to Levin and Rao, the Choosing Wisely initiative was intended “to reduce the use of tests and treatments that were felt to be overused or often unnecessary.” Imaging examinations were included in the list of tests that were deemed to be “of limited value” in many situations. Levin and Rao suggested that there might have been a need to curtail testing pushed by payers, policymakers, and physicians at the time, but that the Choosing Wisely initiative could have added to a decline in imaging testing spurred on by the confusion physicians felt when attempting to access unclear scenarios and recommendations for the 124 imaging tests listed.
Imaging Decline Could Have Unintended Consequences for Providers and Patients
In a Radiology Business article, Levin outlined some of the unintended consequences facing healthcare due to the reduction in imaging utilization. He states that “private imaging facilities are starting to close down” and “MRI and other advanced imaging exams are beginning to shift into hospital outpatient facilities.” He predicts that the shift from private facilities to hospital facilities could cause imaging costs to increase for customers and healthcare providers.
Levin suggests that Medicare could “raise the fees a little and make the private offices a little more viable.” The profit margins, Levin argues, “are so low right now that you basically can’t run a business.” Medicare as a program might be seeing huge savings, Levin notes in several articles, but physicians, laboratories, and patients are feeling the pinch as a result.
In an interview with Physicians Practice, Rao echoed Levin’s concerns. “Policy makers lack understanding of the value of imaging and spectrum of the services provided by radiologists,” he declared. “On an institutional level, under the new payment models, radiology is transitioning to a cost center and radiologists often don’t have a seat at the table.”
Rao points out that this devaluing of radiologists’ work affects not only healthcare facilities, but patients themselves. Radiologists provide “major contributions to patient care by making accurate diagnoses, and doing minimally invasive treatments given many technological advances leading to appropriate management and improved outcomes,” he argues. How long before Pathology follows a similar track?
Balancing Cost and Quality in Testing Without Sacrificing Patient Needs
The fear seems to be that the push to lower costs by eliminating unnecessary imaging is inhibiting radiologists and diagnosticians from providing necessary imaging for patients. And that delaying diagnoses affects the ability of healthcare providers to provide adequate and timely patient care. Rao suggests, however, that physicians’ use of medical imaging could simply be evolving.
“There were other factors that also helped limit the rapid growth, such as greater attention by physicians to practice guidelines, concerns about radiation exposure to patients, and the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009,” Rao noted in a Thomas Jefferson University news release. “However, we expect that additional changes, such as the advent of lung cancer and other screening programs, and the use of computerized clinical decision support, will continue to promote and support appropriate use of imaging technology.”
The drive to reduce healthcare expenditures should not be dismissed. We may soon see parallels in the rise and fall of imaging utilization for genetic testing, surgical pathology, and other new and expensive clinical laboratory technologies as policymakers attempt to balance increased spending against the clinical value of these diagnostic tools.
