With 2004 careening to an end, vendors all in a mad dash to finalize plans for year-end introductions, and radiologists and radiology administrators plotting their expeditions to the annual scientific meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in the great city of Chicago, it is a good time to take 5 minutes to reflect on what lies ahead for radiology. The following trends are worth some thought as we move into 2005.

1. For better or worse, practices are expanding. This is a clear-cut trend in medicine at large, and though I have no data to support this, it appears that radiology practices are getting bigger as well. This phenomenon is worth watching closely in your market: you may need to adjust your position based on what others in your service area are doing.

2. The pace of progress is accelerating. How will you stay abreast of change in clinical practice and operations? What role will informatics play and how will radiologists and administrators deploy these tools? What tools can be identified to enable the roll-out and wrap-up of clinical studies in shorter time frames? With a need for more, not less, continuing education and a push for productivity, how will CME be accessed?

3. By all reports, there will be more imaging in 2005 and beyond, both within and beyond diagnostics. More imaging will be required to plan cancer treatments, and as clinicians develop the ability to devise more personally targeted treatments, they will need more imaging to assess their success. But imaging will also play a role in novel therapies only now being imagined. A paper in the December issue of Radiology by Bos et al described the intravascular delivery in an animal model of mesenchymal stem cells to the kidney and liver.

4. Payors will look to restrict utilization. A paper posted on the Health Affairs web site, ” Public Perceptions of Cost Containment Strategies: Mixed Signals for Managed Care ,” suggests that most Americans appear willing to accept cost-containment strategies in exchange for lower health care costs. However, a majority of people surveyed do not trust managed care to accomplish this without compromising quality.

5. Service, service, and more service: Banker’s hours in radiology are officially over. And to maintain market share in a competitive field, radiology departments, practices, and imaging centers are differentiating themselves. Marketers like to call this brand identification, and an entire session was devoted to this at the summer meeting of the Radiology Business Management Association. RBMA keynote speaker, author, and marketing executive Scott Bedbury shared a story about his days with Nike. They had outfitted an entire African tribe in Nike sneakers and filmed footage of the tribe wearing them. The spot ended with a close-up on a tribal member speaking into the camera in his native tongue with these now familiar words superimposed across the bottom of the screen: “Just do it.” Unfortunately, the direct translation was quite a bit different. The man actually was complaining that the sneakers made his feet hurt, as was pointed out by a reporter from a major daily newspaper who called the next morning. In articulating your unique selling proposition, be sure you can live up to it.

And as you navigate your way into 2005, best wishes to all for a very happy holiday and a healthy and prosperous new year.

Cheryl Proval