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Imaging IT

HIMSS 2022 Reflections

Two years after HIMSS became COVID’s first trade show casualty, healthcare’s leading IT conference returned to Orlando with a very post-COVID vibe and a surge in imaging activity. 

Hope you had a blast if you made it to HIMSS, and here’s some highlights in case you didn’t:

The HIMSS Crowd – Unlike the Delta-impacted HIMSS 2021 conference, this year’s event boasted a full exhibitor list and reportedly solid health IT leadership attendance. However, exhibitor staff often appeared to outnumber potential customers on the show floor, prompting conversations about whether HIMSS is evolving into a B2B event and causing some vendors to question where imaging sits on IT executives’ list of priorities. 

The Mixed Cloud – PACS and enterprise imaging vendors continued to ramp up their cloud capabilities and cloud leadership messaging, with nearly everyone agreeing that the future will bring far more cloud adoption. It was also clear that many radiology practices and hospital systems (and even some PACS vendors) are still taking it slow on their path towards the cloud. 

AI in the Aisles – Only a handful of imaging AI companies had booths this year, but it wasn’t hard to find folks from AI startups walking the show floor or in meeting rooms. That’s actually consistent with previous HIMSS conferences, and it makes a lot of sense given AI startups’ limited budgets and the low count of radiology leaders at the show.

AI in the Enterprise – Although we didn’t hear much about all those PACS-based AI platforms / marketplaces that were announced several years ago, AI was positioned at the center of quite a few PACS vendors’ future diagnostic workflow strategies. These strategies still largely focused on integrating third-party AI tools, but several major enterprise imaging players (e.g. Canon, Fujifilm, Siemens) also forecasted a greater future role for their own homegrown AI tools.

The Productivity Press – With imaging growing in volume / complexity at a much faster rate than imaging teams’ own headcounts / capabilities, just about every product message focused on improving productivity and efficiency. HIMSS 2022 saw imaging vendors address this in a wide variety of ways, including remote modality operation, ultrasound AI automation, automated scanner setup, and hanging protocol standardizing (to name a few).

Expanding Ologies – HIMSS also revealed more multi-ology progress as enterprise imaging players better connected their solutions, added new ology-expanding partnerships, and integrated their acquired companies. That said, it seems like the majority of “enterprise” imaging engagements are still limited to radiology, or at least starting there.

Looking Beyond Imaging – A walk around the show floor suggests that healthcare tech is evolving at a much faster pace outside of imaging, with major adoption and technology advances in telemedicine, patient monitoring, at-home and hybrid care, and patient engagement. Although most of these solutions have little to do with radiology right now, these efforts could change how and where many patients get their care, which would have an impact on nearly all specialties. By the way, we have an excellent newsletter about this space for those looking to keep up with these trends. 

The Takeaway

After one year of digital conferences and another year of minimally-attended hybrid events, the bar has been set pretty low for 2022 trade shows. That said, HIMSS had everything that you would expect from a successful post-COVID trade show (plenty of vendors, exciting tech, strong attendance, good vibes), which is a good sign for future events as long as the pandemic cooperates.

Although HIMSS 2022 didn’t necessarily reveal any major focus changes for imaging IT, it did showcase some solid progress advancing the major imaging trends that we’ve seen over the last few years (cloud, AI, productivity, enterprise-expansion), and we’re excited to see what else this year has in store.

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• Predicting Heart Failure: A JAHA study suggests that cardiac MRI could be used to predict heart failure (HF) among patients with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM). The researchers retrospectively analyzed cardiac MRI findings in 60 patients with ACM, finding that 41 patients (68%) had left ventricular late gadolinium enhancement on cardiac MRI (LV LGE). All 13 patients who experienced HF‐related events during the 34 month median follow-up period also had LV LGE on cardiac MRI (31.7% of patients with LV LGE). HF‐related events also occurred more in patients with higher native T1, higher T2, and higher extracellular volume.

• Annalise’s First FDA: Annalise.ai announced the FDA 510(k) clearance of its Enterprise CXR solution for the triage and notification of pneumothorax on chest X-ray, marking the Australian startup’s first FDA clearance. Annalise Enterprise CXR is also the first product to differentiate tension pneumothorax, allowing users to set up special triage rules for this life-threatening condition. Noting that Enterprise CXR is built to identify 124 different CXR findings (far beyond pneumothorax), it’s very likely that Annalise.ai is working to add more FDA-cleared findings going forward.

• fMRI Behavior Breakthrough: MIT scientists developed a fMRI technique that’s able to image individual groups of neurons and reveal how they interact with each other, potentially allowing researchers to better understand how different brain circuits affect behavior or perception. Unlike current fMRI tech that measures changes to blood flow as a proxy for neural activity, MIT’s virus-delivered “genetic probe” targets specific populations of cells to see how neurons involved in a brain circuit respond to stimuli.

• Change Adds DiA Echo AI: DiA Imaging Analysis and Change Healthcare launched a multi-year partnership that will make DiA’s LVivo Seamless cardiac ultrasound software available via Change’s CPACS cardiology viewer. The FDA/CE-cleared LVivo Seamless solution streamlines Echo Lab workflows by automatically selecting the optimal views from each cardiac ultrasound exam and presenting them on the Change CPACS. The alliance bolsters Change’s cardiac ultrasound capabilities, while further expanding DiA Imaging Analysis’ impressive list of channel partners (also includes GE, Philips, Konica, Terason, SonoScape, Circle CVI, Watson Health).

• GE’s Vscan Air Solutions: GE Healthcare unveiled a pair of Vscan Air solution bundles intended to expand the handheld ultrasound’s device management, image management, and remote collaboration capabilities. GE’s new Vscan Air Fleet enterprise-wide solution combines the Zoom-powered MyRemoteShare collaboration tool (allows clinicians to remotely view/discuss scans) and MyDeviceHub device management application (allows admins to remotely manage and control devices). As its name suggests, GE’s new Vscan Air Individual solution is available to individual clinicians, combining the MyImageCloud image management solution (cloud-based image storage, access, management) and the same MyRemoteShare collaboration tool available in the Fleet bundle.

• EU Density Guidelines: The European Society of Breast Imaging released new screening recommendations for women with extremely dense breasts. The EUSOBI recommends MRI screening for women with extremely dense breasts from ages 50-70, at least every 2 to 4 years. The society also recommends supplementing mammography with MRI, although ultrasound can be paired with mammography as an alternative.

• Philips’ Enterprise Updates: Philips kicked off HIMSS 2021 with a pair of enterprise imaging product updates intended to expand Philips’ informatics solutions across the enterprise. Philips’ updated Enterprise Performance Analytics – Performance Bridge – solution now provides operational insights and analytics for imaging performed or used by the cardiology department (previously radiology-focused). Meanwhile, a new version of Philips HealthSuite Interoperability solution supports health systems ability to create workflows across different technologies and departments.

• MediView Funding: Surgical AR startup MediView XR secured $9.9M in funding (total funding now $14.4M) that it plans to use for FDA submissions, tech development, and team expansion. MediView’s flagship XR90 system combines CT or MRI-based “X-Ray vision” and real-time ultrasound guidance to support tumor removal surgery navigation. This is just the start for MediView, which plans to close a Series A round in early 2023.

• COVID’s Imaging Impact: An Insights into Imaging study used imaging volumes from a German hospital to highlight a considerable decline in overall medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis of over 1.3M exams revealed that imaging volumes fell by 10% during the pandemic, although exams (and by proxy, overall medical care) increased by 17% during the pandemic’s second wave and 33% during the third wave.

• Butterfly Network’s Gates Grant: Butterfly Network received a $5M grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide healthcare workers in Kenya and South Africa with 1,000 Butterfly iQ+ handheld ultrasound devices in an effort to improve prenatal care. A portion of the grant will also fund the expansion of the Butterfly iQ+ mobile app’s maternal and fetal health capabilities.

• X-Ray Camera: Scientists from Australia’s Curtin University are developing a new X-ray detector technique that’s based on metal halide perovskite materials (vs. caesium iodide or gadolinium oxysulfide) and can record images using a standard digital camera. The researchers highlighted metal halide perovskite’s high sensitivity (allowing efficient x-ray photon detection), low material cost, and low radiation, which could allow them to develop these smaller and lower-cost portable X-ray systems.

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The Resource Wire

• Today’s radiology departments are under pressure like never before, and so much of it is generated by rising CT volumes and complexity. See how clinicians view today’s CT challenges, and why they believe scalable CTs might be the solution in this GE Healthcare Report. 

• Curious about what’s new at HIMSS22? This Fujifilm post details how HIMSS 2022 revealed interrelated trends towards using a single comprehensive enterprise imaging solution, leveraging cloud services, and expanding AI adoption.

• Take the AiCE challenge and see why half the radiologists in a recent study “had difficulty differentiating” images from Canon Medical Systems’ Vantage Orian 1.5T MR using its AiCE reconstruction technology compared to standard 3T MRI images.

• Deciding between public and private cloud? Watch this brief Change Healthcare animation detailing the operational benefits of public cloud hosting for imaging.

• It says a lot when a solution works so well for a radiology department that they decide to perform a study to quantify its benefits. In this Imaging Wire Q&A, University Hospital of Zurich’s Thomas Frauenfelder discusses his experience and study on Riverain Technologies ClearRead CT.

• CD burning issues? Check out this one-minute video showing how Novarad’s CryptoChart image sharing solution allows patients to easily access and share their medical images using personalized, highly secure QR codes (not CDs).

• Thinking about adding PET/CT to your clinical offerings but don’t have the patient volume to support a full-time scanner? Check out Siemens Healthineers’ fleet of Biograph mobile PET/CT solutions to learn how we can provide reliable, high-quality imaging with a focus on the patient experience – no matter the location.

• Enterprise Imaging has come a long way, and it has a long way to go. This Intelerad white paper details the five pillars organizations should prioritize in order to realize the full potential of EI’s next evolution.

• Working out your AI business case? Check out this helpful Blackford Analysis post detailing how to create your AI Value Matrix based on your organizational objectives and value indicators.

• See how Dr. Carolyn Lam evolved from a women’s heart health trailblazer to co-founding Us2.ai and automating the fight against heart disease.

• Think your imaging center patients and staff might be open to a better check-in process? See how Radiology Associates of Daytona (RA) streamlined patient check-ins with Fujifilm’s Synapse RIS-integrated Royal Kiosks. 

• The American Medical Association recently added new CPT III codes for quantitative CT tissue characterization, paving the way for more health systems to adopt Nanox AI’s HealthCCSng CAC scoring population health solution. 

• Creating your AI adoption plan? This Arterys report details what clinical, efficiency, and regulatory factors to look for in radiology AI vendors.