Dear AuntMinnie Member,
We're only starting to realize the potential of mobile technology to revolutionize healthcare, and this week's feature story in the PACS Digital Community is a great example. The article, by senior editor Erik L. Ridley, describes how villagers in remote Honduras benefited from a project that linked two mobile technologies: handheld ultrasound and Apple's iPhone.
U.S. researchers dispatched healthcare personnel to Honduras with a compact ultrasound scanner to provide imaging where it previously wasn't available. The healthcare workers were able to render on-the-spot diagnostic interpretation, and images were sent via iPhone to specialists in the U.S. for expert consultation.
Find out how well the link worked -- as well as the degree of correlation between the readers in Honduras using iPhones and those in the U.S. who had full-fledged workstations -- by clicking here, or visit the PACS Digital Community at pacs.auntminnie.com.
Supercommittee eyes Medicare cuts
In other news, the dreaded "supercommittee" charged with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts from the U.S. federal budget has begun considering a proposal to include a fix for the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula in its list of recommendations.
A fix to the flawed SGR formula was proposed last week by the agency that advises Congress on Medicare issues, and the supercommittee is said to be taking the proposal seriously. A permanent fix would stave off a scheduled 30% cut in payments to physicians that is scheduled to go into effect in January.
But fixing the SGR system would also add billions to the government's healthcare budget -- a potential deal killer for the supercommittee. Learn more about what's going on by clicking here.
In other news, associate editor Kate Madden Yee talked to Dr. Howard Forman of Yale University in the latest installment of our Leaders in Imaging series. In the article, Dr. Forman provides his take on radiology's role in managing the growth of healthcare costs, and what radiology professionals can do to be more efficient. Read more by clicking here, or visit the community at leaders.auntminnie.com.
