The first half of 2026 is now in our rear-view mirror. As we do every year, we’ve compiled a list of the top six stories – one for each month – to help recap what was important in medical imaging.
Radiology Reporting Booms as Microsoft Sunsets PowerScribe 360
Microsoft’s announcement in February that it would be sunsetting its PowerScribe 360 radiology reporting software set off a scramble for market share that continues months later. While PowerScribe was instrumental in moving radiology to speech recognition-based reporting, many radiology facilities are seeing the announcement as a chance to adopt more modern AI-powered reporting solutions.
Radiology Dominates List of New AI Approvals
The FDA regularly updates its list of AI-enabled medical devices with marketing authorizations, and our coverage of the agency’s decisions was the second most-popular story of 2026’s first half. As with previous updates, radiology dominated the list, garnering 76% of all authorizations since the agency began keeping count and 75% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Residency Push Skips Radiology
Workforce shortages are a hot story across healthcare, and radiology is no exception. But the specialty won’t be getting much help from a federal initiative to add more resident training slots. Of the more than 400 residency programs awarded funding so far, only two diagnostic radiology programs were selected.
Radiologist Quit Rates Double in a Decade
Having to do more work with less personnel could be convincing many radiologists to leave the profession. Our readers paid close attention to a February story on a JACR study that documented a doubling of the radiologist quit rate over 10 years, and the exact point in terms of case workload when rads were most likely to leave.
Data Is Lacking on AI’s ROI
As radiology AI slowly moves from pilot projects to widespread clinical adoption, a new survey reveals a paradox: The technology is popular with radiologists, but few imaging facilities using AI have collected hard data showing its return on investment. That’s according to another popular story from April.
Study Finds Variation in Radiologist Workload
Our sixth and final top story of 2026 addressed the growth in imaging volume since the COVID-19 pandemic, and how radiologists responded. Researchers found that volume did indeed grow faster than the supply of radiologists, but some imagers were doing more than others in picking up the slack.
The Takeaway
Our readers have apparently been interested in workload issues so far this year, as evidenced by the fact that three of the top six stories on The Imaging Wire for the first half of 2026 had something to do with radiology’s rising exam volume and its ramifications. The other half broadly addressed AI and imaging IT issues. See a connection?
