Springtime in KC

By John Ising, BSRT, CRA, FAHRA

It’s springtime in Kansas City, the weather is good, and it’s baseball season again. Can you think of a better time to get together with imaging colleagues from the area, talk shop, and get some CEUs and GREAT information? Attendees from Western Missouri, as well as Eastern and Central Kansas, came together last month (without a border war, I might add) to enjoy each other’s company and benefit from the AHRA local area meeting sponsored by Hitachi Medical Systems. A big thank you to Hitachi and all of AHRA’s corporate sponsors that facilitate these sessions.

About 35 radiology management folks got together at the Overland Park Convention center to hear Shawn McKenzie, President of the Ascendian Healthcare Consulting Group, talk to us about two hot topics in today’s fast paced radiology world: radiation dose and Vendor Neutral Archiving (VNA). Shawn opened with his presentation, “Radiation Dose Management and Tracking.” With The Joint Commission’s new guidelines on tracking and managing patient dose in CT set to go into effect, this was a timely subject with plenty of questions. This year CT radiation dose regulations go into effect and over the next years, surely more will follow. After the first session we took a break for a Mediterranean themed lunch and networking.

Following the lunch break, Shawn gave his presentation titled “VNA – Cornerstone Technology for Transforming Medical Imaging.” VNA is the next step in the progression towards having truly easily transferable healthcare information that follows a patient wherever they go. I know that this is a topic that we as radiology managers will need to become much more familiar and comfortable with in the very near future.

Again, a big thank you to AHRA, Hitachi, and the Overland Park Convention Center for a very enjoyable and educational day. Shawn provided a wealth of information on these topics and did a great job of keeping everyone focused, learning, and entertained. We all left looking forward to many more of these opportunities to pick up some CEUs, do some great networking, and still have time to get some work done, or as some of us prefer, to get out to the ballpark and watch those amazing Royals!

John Ising, BSRT, CRA, FAHRA is the radiology manager at Saint Luke’s South Hospital in Overland Park, KS. He can be reached at jising@saint-lukes.org.