The U.S. healthcare industry was rocketed into the 21st century with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. The legislation and its focus on reducing healthcare costs while expanding insurance coverage has generated a great deal of controversy in the four years since, and an expert panel in a special session at the 2014 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting warned radiologists to brace themselves for more changes in 2015.

A new era of telehealth has arrived. According to HIMSS Analytics 3rd Annual Mobile Survey, 83 percent of physicians use mobile technology to provide care. Because doctors are so mobile, patient information has to be mobile as well. The goal of telehealth is to eliminate geographic constraints and deliver quality patient care at any time, in any location.1 Many healthcare providers have shown an increasing interest in telehealth because of the benefits it can provide, among them, greater access to patient data and images, lower costs and higher quality of care. Offerings of telehealth include consumer online access to providers for diagnosis and treatment of common ailments, real-time video-based virtual consults between providers and patients, in-home monitoring of chronically ill patients, and primary care physicians’ access to specialists for consultation and diagnosis.

Angiographic imaging system vendors have developed several new technologies to address emerging cath lab trends, including the need to reduce radiation dose, improve image quality and enable advanced procedural image guidance. All three of these points have become increasingly important as more complex procedures are attempted in interventional labs and hybrid ORs. These procedures include embolic coiling, neuro-interventions, thrombectomy, aortic repair, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), mitral clip valve repairs, left atrial appendage (LAA) occlusions, atrial and ventricular septal defect closures, and new interventions for both electrophysiology (EP) and heart failure.