There continues to be rapid advancements in medical imaging technology and many radiology providers see breast tomosynthesis as one of the most exciting new and emerging imaging technologies, according to a peer60 report on trends in medical imaging and technology.
According to the peer60 survey, half of radiology providers surveyed mentioned breast tomosynthesis as the most exciting new imaging modality technology, with 22 percent citing portable DR. Other technologies cited by survey respondents as exciting new imaging modality technologies include PET/MR, dose reduction CT and EOS.
When it comes to imaging IT technology, 26 percent of the radiology providers surveyed said they were the most excited about cloud-based image sharing, while 23 percent said VNA, 16 percent said advances in dose management and 11 percent said clinical decision support. Other technologies cited include universal viewers, analytics and CAD.
The peer60 report reflects a survey of 554 healthcare providers from about 840 healthcare facilities over several weeks in November 2015. The providers represent more than 15 percent of radiology imaging departments across the country, including chiefs of radiology, imaging directors, PACS administration, IT managers and executives, according to peer60.
Of the survey respondents, 35.5 percent were directors of radiology/imaging, 24.8 percent were PACS admins, 18.3 percent were managers of radiology/imaging, 7.8 percent were radiologists, 5.5 percent were chiefs of radiology, 4.6 percent were IT managers and 3.5 percent were executives.
When asked what technologies providers in radiology were most serious about purchasing, the top option was radiation dose monitoring (49 percent), followed by speech recognition then image sharing and VNA and PACS rounded up the top 5 technologies. Survey respondents also noted they were interested in purchasing enterprise imaging platform technologies as well as advanced visualization and digital X-rays.
Radiology providers also were surveyed about their preferred imaging IT vendors, with 14 percent naming Nuance, 12.7 choosing Agfa and 10.2 percent choosing Fuji. After those top three, respondents mentioned, in ranking order, McKesson, Siemens, Visage, Merge (IBM), Carestream , GE, Perceptive, M*Modal and Vital Images.
As part of the survey, radiology providers also were asked to identify the top reasons why they prefer one vendor over another. Close to a quarter of respondents said the functionality of the vendors’ solutions was their top reason, followed by quality of their solutions and customer support and service (both with about 20 percent of respondents). Thirteen percent of radiology providers said the solutions ability to integrate well into their systems was an important factor while cost of ownership was mentioned as an important factor by only 5.8 percent of radiology providers.
When asked to name their preferred modality vendor, 36. 8 percent of radiology providers named GE, followed by Siemens (23 percent), Philips (16 percent) and Toshiba (12 percent). The following vendors also were named, but by only around 2 to 3 percent of radiology provider survey respondents: Fuji, Carestream, Shimadzu and Agfa.
Radiology providers identified their modality vendors’ top qualities and 54 percent said quality and functionality of their modalities. About 22 percent of survey respondents listed exceptional customer support as a top quality, followed by attentive account management, highly integratable and total cost of ownership.
