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Medical Imaging

The 35 Best Radiology Newsletters, Blogs, and Websites to Follow

We’re dedicating today’s Top Story to the people and publications that I rely on to find the most interesting medical imaging stories. Assuming that you already subscribe to The Imaging Wire, these are the 35 other newsletters, websites, blogs, and accounts to follow if you want to know what’s happening in radiology.

I’ll always check the mainstream radiology news websites (Aunt Minnie, Health Imaging, et al.) and the major medical imaging journals (RSNA, EJR, JACR, etc.), but in order to find news that you won’t see elsewhere and understand how it impacts radiology, the juiciest stories usually come from the people of medical imaging.

• Brian Casey Insights – Brian is the GOAT of radiology news and he has some big stuff coming up.
• AI for Radiology – Kicky will get you caught up on AI quickly, and she’s an actual radiology AI insider.
• Signify Research – Home of the best radiology analysis, backed by actual market data.
• Dr. Lauren Oakden-Rayner – My favorite radiology blogger. Her posts don’t just cover the news, they are the news.
• Ben White, MD – Excellent insights into the business of being a working radiologist.
• Aunt Minnie Forums – The Rads on the AM Forums can get nasty, but their insights are nice.
• Hardian Health – A must read if you’re trying to navigate AI regulatory issues.
• PACSMan – When Mike sent us our first hatemail I was pumped that someone was reading, and his Aunt Minnie editorials keep us pumped. 
• Tom Greeson – Tom’s ReedSmith posts are a great way to know which radiology stories are actually significant and why.

The Best Radiology Social Media “Influencers” to Follow

Nowadays the juiciest news isn’t even published, it’s posted. And it’s often posted by these legends of radiology social media.

• Dr. Saurabh Jha – Fearless, funny, and makes us all smarter
• Jan Beger – Perhaps the best imaging AI follow on LinkedIn
• Dr. Geraldine McGinty – Dr. McGinty’s feed has become the moral compass of radiology
• Dr. Rizwan Malik – Incredibly insightful and uniquely autobiographical 
• Andrew Murphy – A much needed radiographer voice in a sea of radiologists
• Dr. Nina Kottler – Eloquent and informed insights from the frontlines of imaging AI
• Dr. Amine Korchi – A radiologist with keen eye for business news (and a great writer)
• Dr. Laura Heacock – A leading voice on AI research and advancements
• Dr. Rich Duszak – My source for radiology leadership and responsible imaging
• Dr. Curt Langlotz – The first place I look for imaging AI context

The Best Healthcare Newsletters and Sites

It can be pretty comfy inside the radiology news bubble, but imaging is just one part of healthcare. That’s what makes these newsletters and websites from outside the reading room so important.

• Digital Health Wire (of course)
• Cardiac Wire (of course)
• Out of Pocket Health
• Second Opinion
• Rock Health
• Health API Guy
• Sensible Medicine
• Kaiser Family Foundation
• Hospitalogy (which inspired this story)
• Healthcare Huddle
• Axios Vitals
• Talking Healthcare Technology
• Vator News
• Heath Tech Nerds
• Stat News
• Axios Vitals

The Takeaway

If you want to stay informed about radiology news and know what’s going on across healthcare, these sources will give you everything you need. You can also join over 10k medical imaging lifers and sign up for The Imaging Wire and we’ll do it for you.

PS – If there’s any radiology publications or healthcare news sources that should be on this list, let me know!

Can You Spot the 1.5T MRI?

Can you tell which of these images are from a 3T MRI and which are from a 1.5T scanner and enhanced with Canon’s AiCE Deep Learning Reconstruction? Take the AiCE Challenge to find out.

Democratizing Echocardiography with AI

We talk a lot about AI’s potential to expand echo access, and this Imaging Wire Show reveals that ultrasound’s AI-driven expansion might go far beyond what many of us had in mind. Check out our discussion with Duke Health’s Madhav Swaminathan, MBBS, MD and Us2.ai’s Carolyn Lam MBBS, PhD and James Hare, to see how AI is democratizing echo exams.

Arterys’ Top Imaging Trends

With ongoing radiologist shortages and higher rates of burnout, there’s a great need for fast, effective, efficient medical imaging technologies – and those factors are driving medical imaging biggest trends detailed in this Arterys report.

The Wire

• Canon’s Pathology Expansion: Canon Medical Informatics is adding pathology to its Enterprise Imaging suite through a new partnership with Tribun Health, expanding its coverage beyond radiology, cardiology, and endoscopy. Canon’s Tribun partnership continues enterprise imaging’s expansion into pathology, adding to a growing list of imaging companies that created or acquired digital pathology businesses (e.g. Sectra, Philips, Fujifilm) or launched similar partnerships (GE w/ Tribun, Siemens w/ Proscia).

• Previous CTs for Presurgical Planning: NYU researchers found that heart surgeons might be able to use previous chest CTs to predict surgical risks, potentially instead of presurgical scans. Four NYU physicians without CT interpretation experience were briefly trained to estimate coronary artery calcium plaque buildup (0-9 total scores) and then assessed 2,650 patients using their previous chest CTs. The CAC estimates accurately predicted patients’ risks of major events (0-2 = <4%; 3-4 = 8%; 6-9 = 13%) and were consistent across each physician.

• United Imaging’s 5.0T MRI Debuts: United Imaging’s uMR Jupiter 5.0T whole-body MRI made its international debut at ECR 2023, and definitely attracted a crowd. The uMR Jupiter 5.0T appears to overcome many challenges that have kept high-field MRI from clinical use, including its status as the first world’s first whole-body 5T MR and its ability to be installed in a 3.0T-sized room. The uMR Jupiter 5.0T doesn’t have CE or FDA approval yet, and its rollout isn’t confirmed, but for now it’s a testament to United Imaging’s innovative MR pipeline.

• MGB’s Discrepancy Alerts: A study based on MGB’s adoption of a notification system for discrepant radiologist second opinions (original rad is notified of different interpretation, and must acknowledge it in 30 days) found that although discrepant opinions are rare, they frequently lead to changes in clinical management. Out of 114 discrepant opinion alerts between December 2019 and December 2021 (0.0006% of all reports), the vast majority of alerts were categorized as “major” or “moderate” (58 and 41) and 64 alerts led to clinical management changes (56.1%).

• ECR AI Alliances: The wave of ECR 2023-timed AI partnership announcements continued last week, highlighted by Oxipit becoming the latest AI player to join the CARPL platform, Lunit INSIGHT CXR’s integration into Agfa’s MUSICA Workstation, Avicenna.AI’s addition to the Incepto platform, and Koios Medical’s distribution alliance with RMS Medical Devices. These alliances combine with a long list of AI partnerships covered in the last few Imaging Wire issues, and are a reminder of the AI segment’s major focus on platform integration.

• Envisionit Deep AI Scores $1.65M: South African AI startup Envisionit Deep AI secured $1.65M in funding to expand its product suite and global presence. Envisionit Deep AI’s core Radify AI platform detects 25 different abnormalities in chest X-rays, and can be deployed in areas with limited infrastructure. Radify AI is already approved in South Africa, and its FDA and European approval processes are underway.

• BI-RADS Classification AI: Swiss researchers developed a deep learning system that accurately classified breast density in 2D mammograms. The researchers used 4,605 synthetic 2D mammography images to develop, validate, and test two DL networks (based on MLO and CC views). The combined models differentiated BI-RADS A/B and C/D densities with promising sensitivity (80.4%), specificity (89.3%), and accuracy (89.6%) – matching human experts. Agreement between the AI and humans and between two blinded rads were both “substantial” (k: 0.61 vs. 0.63).

• Patient Education Gap: A Wolters Kluwer Health survey found that 94% of patients want more patient education, yet 32% never receive educational materials from their providers. Among 1k healthcare consumers, 66% reported having lingering questions after their provider encounters and 19% frequently have new questions altogether, causing many patients to turn to social media and other unvetted sources for answers.

• Dual-Source CTA Efficiency: A new AJR study revealed that using a modern dual-source CT (DSCT) for coronary CTA can expedite clinical workups for ED patients with chest pain by eliminating the need for beta-blockers. Analysis of 509 patients who visited an ED when they used an older single-source CT and after they adopted a DSCT scanner, finding that the two groups had similar lengths of stay (457 vs. 505 min) but the DSCT group had a significantly shorter median CT completion time (117 vs. 95 min).

• Methinks’ Stroke CE Mark: The stroke AI segment added yet another vendor, after Methinks announced its Stroke Suite’s CE Mark approval. The Methinks Stroke Suite identifies LVO in CTAs and non-contrast CTs and detects ICH in non-contrast CTs. It’s also the first CE marked AI solution that identifies hyperdense and non-hyperdense LVO.

• January Hospital Margin Update: Kaufman Hall’s latest National Hospital Flash Report is in, and although hospitals entered 2023 on “more stable footing” than during last year’s omicron outbreak, median margins were still down from -0.7% in December to -1% in January. Lower volumes and ED visits combined with a 3% monthly rise in labor costs to drag down the margins, but Kaufman Hall expects that hospitals making purchases for the year in January contributed to the shaky performance. Last year’s numbers are scary to look at.

Webinar: AI in Medical Imaging, Friend or Foe?

Listen to a panel of medical imaging experts – including Merative CMO Dr. David Gruen, TeraRecon CTO Sinan Batman, and Dr. Eliot Siegel, Vice Chair at the University of Maryland School of Medicine – share their perspectives on the value of AI in improving patient outcomes, streamlining workflows and reducing physician burnout. Merative and TeraRecon, in partnership with AI Med, will host this panel discussion in a webinar on March 9th. Sign up here.

Nuance’s Best in KLAS

Nuance just scored three #1 Best in KLAS 2023 distinctions, including PowerShare’s win of the Image Exchange category with an impressive 89.1 customer satisfaction score.

The Resource Wire

• Learn how Salem Regional Medical Center improved its radiology workflows and cut service and syringe expenses after adopting Bayer’s MEDRAD Stellant FLEX system.

• Alma Dayawon “knew there was something wrong” with the pain under her arm, even though her mammogram was normal and her doctors told her there was nothing to worry about. Check out this powerful story of how the GE HealthCare Australia communications leader was eventually diagnosed with and treated for invasive lobular breast cancer, and how she’s now working to bring awareness to the rare type of cancer.

• Despite significant interest, there’s still confusion about the value of imaging AI. This Blackford Analysis white paper explores the key cost considerations and ROI factors that radiology groups can use to figure out how to make AI valuable for them.

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

• Are you seeing the complete picture with your outdated cardiac PET imaging? Check out this Siemens Healthineers patient story, showing how cardiac PET/CT revealed microvascular diseases in a patient who had normal uptake on his PET exam.

• See how Novarad’s CryptoChart solution allowed Central Ohio Primary Care (COPC, 70 practices, 400 physicians) to make the transition to digital imaging sharing in this Healthcare IT News case study.

• How patients interact with a medical device can have as much impact as the device itself. Check out this Q&A with Hyperfine Lead Product Designer Corinne Hay to learn how human factors influence the design of everything from prescription containers to portable MRI systems.

• This Riverain Technologies case study details how Duke University Medical Center integrated ClearRead CT into its chest CT workflows, reducing read times by 26% and improving nodule detection by 29%.

• When faced with deciding whether to upgrade its two aging 1.5T MRIs, Green Imaging instead boosted its MR efficiency with Subtle Medical’s SubtleMR solution, quickly increasing its daily exams by 57% without having to buy a new $1M-plus magnet. See why Green Imaging’s CEO called SubtleMR a “game-changer.”

• The technology exists to unlock insights hidden within patient data, IF we look at how we use healthcare intelligence differently. See how Enlitic is using AI to solve the decades old data challenges that are keeping healthcare providers from transforming how we deliver healthcare.

• Think your patients are ready for you to ditch the disk? Join ACR past president, Dr. Geraldine McGinty, and Intelerad president, Morris Panner, for this Imaging Wire Show exploring the state of image sharing, its impact on patient care, and how radiology can finally ditch the disk.

• Curious how certain your AI is about its own finding? annalise.ai’s confidence bar displays the likelihood of each finding and the AI model’s level of certainty, helping clinicians perform their interpretations with greater confidence.

• United Imaging’s service organization is called Customer Success for a reason. Their mission is to think ahead, understand their customers’ goals and proactively help customers achieve them. They also store critical service parts in the U.S. and back up their promises with the United Performance Guarantee.

• See how Thomas Jefferson University relied on CARPL.ai to accelerate its AI validation and clinical adoption in this presentation by informatics and AI leader, Dr. Paras Lakhani.