Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disability in the world, killing 17.7 million people a year.  That's a third of all deaths on the planet and half of all non-communicable-disease-related deaths. Cardiac imaging and vascular imaging are critical in foreseeing an event before it happens.

It’s Wednesday afternoon at 2:59 p.m.: time for vRad radiologist Siva Bodagala to go to work.

He ascends a flight of stairs in his suburban Houston home and arrives in his home-office promptly at 3 p.m.

The 60-second commute is about 60 minutes shorter than the one required to get him to his previous job as an assistant professor of radiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB)—Galveston Campus.

And it’s immensely less stressful.

Key Strategies to Drive Success in Your Practice—View On-Demand the MEDNAX Radiology Leadership Discussion.

“Knowledge is power.” This maxim is as true today as when Francis Bacon first uttered it some 400 years ago.

Through CGI (computer-generated imagery), the folks at Pixar – creators of Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Monsters, Inc. – allow audiences to explore and experience incredible worlds of perceptible dimension, nuanced shading and subtle detail. 

With the transition from year one to year two in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), there are several noteworthy changes to the program:

If radiologists are the brain of vRad, our technology is the nervous system, delivering impulses—in the form of images—to our radiologists working across the country and the world.

To kick off 2018, I sat down with our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Benjamin W. Strong, to explore his perspective on uniting clinical necessity and technology development here at vRad.

Remember fidgeting in bed, waiting to open the greatest present you ever asked for the night before your birthday? Or how about sitting in high school, nervously anticipating whether or not “studying” paid off, as the teacher passed out a chapter exam? Now combine the two, sprinkle in a touch of indecisiveness, increase the stakes indefinitely and what do you get?

It’s a great time to be in radiology.

It’s a time of change, yes. And that—as with any change—can be unnerving and even frightening.

But with the ongoing transformation in radiology comes great opportunity for growth. And with that in mind, 2018 is an ideal time for radiology groups to take time to explore and consider the possibilities inherent in today’s radiology environment.

Welcome back to the vRad technology quest as we unlock the 7^th and final key!

As always, I recommend you check out the first post in the series if you’re interested in the topics I’ve covered thus far.

Today we’ll discuss how we perform scheduled maintenance on our highly available (24/7/365) platform and our process for minimizing or eliminating disruptions when short notice changes are necessary.

Let’s get to it.