April 8 has come and gone. Microsoft XP support is over. Our use of XP-based picture archive and communications system (PACS) should be as well. But it’s not.

This year marked the first of Stage 2 Meaningful Use (MU) for eligible providers, eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAH) that already completed the required years of attestation to Stage 1 — three years if beginning Stage 1 in 2011, two years for those who began after. The objectives for Stage 2 are similar to Stage 1: all providers must meet a set of “core” objectives while also reporting on a number of available “menu” objectives, in order to attain MU certification and receive payments under the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs. For Stage 2 MU, eligible professionals must meet 17 core objectives and three menu objectives; eligible hospitals and CAHs will need to meet 16 core objectives and three menu objectives.

Imaging displays, from consumer to medical grade, have come a long way since the days of bulky screens and low resolutions. Today, flat panel displays in the healthcare arena have increasing capacity to offer improved contrast ratios, truer colors, better energy efficiency, high luminance and more. A variety of vendors continue to improve the technology to better display imaging modalities, including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), X-ray, positron emission tomography (PET), mammography and ultrasound, and to ensure screens remain DICOM (digital imaging and communications in medicine) compliant.

Cardiac ultrasound technology has advanced to keep up with several trends. These include improved workflow for greater efficiency, expanded use of qualification metrics, expanded use of 3-D echo to speed exam times and improve operator reproducibility, and expanded use of 3-D transesophageal echo (TEE) to aid guidance in the growing area of transcatheter structural heart procedures. Here are a few examples of how the newest technology is addressing these trends.

The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) recently held its annual meeting in St. Louis. It provided an in-depth review of molecular imaging technologies, clinical applications, and translational and advanced research topics for molecular imaging professionals — nuclear medicine physicians, scientists, radiologists, cardiologists, pharmacists, technologists, researchers, and others involved and interested in nuclear medicine and molecular imaging and therapy.