Philips and Arizona-based Banner Health recently announced they have extended their multi-year partnership to include adoption of Philips' PerformanceBridge Practice, helping Banner to accelerate its clinical transformation in radiology and further deliver on its goal of improving care for patients. PerformanceBridge Practice is a part of the Philips PerformanceBridge portfolio, a suite of operational performance improvement software and services that assist radiology departments in enhancing productivity, improving the patient and staff experience, while delivering better value-based care. Philips and Banner will work collaboratively to pinpoint improvement opportunities, and a dedicated Philips Solution Advisor will help Banner to develop solutions that address areas for improvement. Banner will roll out PerformanceBridge Practice in all 28 of its radiology departments in a two-phased approach, starting with their 16 Arizona and academic sites, then expanding to its 12 radiology departments in five other states.

Seno Medical Instruments Inc. (Seno Medical) recently reported data from their clinical study demonstrating that its Imagio opto-acoustic (OA) breast imaging system achieved significant differentiation among prognostic subtypes of breast cancer (PSBC). These prognostic subtypes provide important information about the genes that each patient's cancer expresses. The data were presented during a poster presentation at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, Dec. 5-9 in San Antonio, Texas.

IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.) announced in November the acceptance and beam model validation of the first Varian Halcyon machine in Europe to go clinical, at the hospital UZ Leuven in Belgium, using IBA Dosimetry’s Blue Phantom water phantom system.

December 29, 2017 — Radiologists can enhance the quality and effectiveness of care with the newest release of the ACR ...

In the December featured basic science article in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Belgian researchers report on the first large-scale longitudinal imaging study to evaluate BACE1 inhibition with micro-PET (positron emission tomography) in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. PET imaging has been established as an excellent identifier of the amyloid plaque and tau tangles that characterize Alzheimer’s disease. Now it is proving to be an effective way to gauge treatment effectiveness.

Philips recently announced that it acquired VitalHealth, a provider of cloud-based population health management solutions for the delivery of personalized care outside of the hospital, for example, in regional care networks. Headquartered in the Netherlands, VitalHealth’s products and services are being used by more than 100 healthcare networks in various countries including the United States, India, China, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. The company was founded in 2006 by Mayo Clinic (U.S.) and Noaber Foundation (the Netherlands) and employs approximately 200 employees. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Median Technologies recently announced a research collaboration agreement with Xingtai People's Hospital, Xingtai City, China. Within the frame of the agreement, Median's MediScan image analysis technology will be used to conduct lung cancer screening programs organized under the aegis of Xingtai People's Hospital in Xingtai City. These programs are critically important to improving the health of the people of Xingtai City since the incidence of and mortality associated with lung cancer have increased dramatically in China and become a nationwide public health issue, giving rise to an increased burden on patients, healthcare professionals and society.