Browsing: Cover Story

To say that hospital decision-makers are inundated with data is an understatement. Analytics are used to justify any change in thinking at every level of management, from purchasing to servicing to staffing and beyond. But any department head will also tell you that the value of that information only goes as far as the meaning you can extrapolate from it.

For years, women’s health care advocates have pushed legislators at every level of government to pass breast density inform laws: regulations requiring providers to notify their patients about whether they have dense breast tissue as a component of their mammogram reports.

Since the introduction of commercially available 3D printers, the technology has been largely celebrated for its adoption by makerspaces, as an introductory method of teaching computing to children or as a novelty gift for gadget lovers.

Amid the vertical integration of parts, sales, and service providers, and greater consolidation in the hospital space, both ends of the customer relationship have tightened in the past decade-plus.