As RSNA’s 101st Annual Meeting draws to a close, the 55,000-strong crowd of healthcare professionals from around the world disperses from McCormick Place, having caught a glimpse of the exciting future of radiology. Here is a helpful round-up of the biggest news to come out of RSNA this year.
While Big Iron is still of key importance to the industry, this year saw a shift in focus to the next frontier in radiology: Big Data. As John Flannery, CEO and president of GE Healthcare, wrote in the run-up to the conference, “medicine is becoming increasingly data-focused, algorithmic and predictive.”
Jeffrey Immelt, CEO and chairman of GE, agreed, declaring during the New Horizons lecture that “the biggest technical theme in the world today is the merger between machines and data.”
“Radiology is going to be in great demand and we are going to have to be ready. It’s that simple,” said Dr. Ronald L. Arenson, M.D., President of RSNA, on Monday November 30th. “We have work to do if technology is going to meet its promise for the future – work that requires managing change as much as embracing it.”
A key take-away message from this year’s conference is that, to leverage the reams of data that are now coming out of healthcare’s Big Iron, physicians and radiologists must engage in stronger partnerships with healthcare companies.
“The future of imaging is going to be value-based,” said Dr. Rasu Shrestha, Chief Innovation Officer at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “Working with a partner like GE to go from vision to execution is what we need. The future of healthcare will be built on the shoulders of these strong partnerships.”
Dr. Shrestha, along with other highly influential players in the radiology field, took turns taking over the GE Healthcare Twitter account to give us their first-person view of some of RSNA’s key developments and innovations, from breast density to radiation dose and the Cloud.
In a number of talks and interviews held via Periscope and YouTube livestreams, this year’s key advancements were highlighted. The biggest is not a new machine, but the GE Health Cloud.
The first industry-specific cloud built on GE’s Predix platform, GE Health Cloud is an ecosystem that will offer scalable and secure solutions designed exclusively for the healthcare industry, turning imaging into insight, and insights into action.
Day two of the conference saw GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt and GE Healthcare CEO John Flannery lead a panel discussion on the technology and services, like the Health Cloud, that will drive outcomes and lead to better health for all.
If you missed any of our talks, they are all available to watch back in full here.
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Catch up with all the news and views from GE Healthcare at the show