For better or worse, healthcare reform has arrived, and with it comes a contentious debate about the certification of electronic medical records (EMR) systems for meaningful use. Managing large medical image files has long been a challenge even within radiology, yet diagnostic data would seem essential to a physician’s treatment of disease.

Editor's Note: This article is an introduction to the ultrasound scanning systems comparison chart that ran in the September 2010 issue of Imaging Technology News. The chart can be found under the comparison chart tab at the top of the page.

Despite the continued attacks by policymakers regarding imaging and its impact on healthcare costs, the diagnostic imaging industry is positioned to take on these challenges to not only survive, but also to thrive in the healthcare reform implementation era.

In this era of financial cost cutting, questions are raised over the true need for 256- or 320-slice computed tomography (CT) systems for cardiac imaging. There are many radiologists and cardiologists who argue a 64-slice CT system is good enough to make a cardiac diagnosis without spending twice as much for the higher-slice systems.

Mammography and breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are tried-and-true methods for spotting and preventing the spread of breast cancer and other abnormalities. Mammography alone detects up to 90 percent of breast cancers in women over 50, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).