For nearly 20 years, Toshiba America Medical Systems has been a vanguard-level sponsor of the RSNA’s Research and Education Foundation, which funds grants for young researchers in the imaging field. Since its inception 26 years ago, the foundation has provided more than $25 million in grants to 630 radiology investigators and educators. “These grants align with Toshiba’s focus on education and research,” Cathy Wolfe, director of marketing services for Toshiba, explains.

Toshiba’s education-focused collaboration with professional associations has expanded in the past few years to include the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and AHRA: The Association for Medical Imaging Management. The company sponsors the AHRA’s Putting Patients First Program, and has completed its second round of grant giving.  The program seeks to improve the safety and quality of care in imaging both pediatric and adult patients. Putting Patients First provides six grants of up to $7,500 per year to hospitals and imaging centers to help fund programs, training, or seminars focused in this area.

In 2008, one such project involved developing a patient-handoff system to facilitate transferring patients from the hospital to the imaging department. Another looked at creating a bar-code system for identifying patients with allergies to contrast media. All grant recipients agree to share their results with others so that facilities around the country have the ability to implement similar systems, according to Ed Cronin, executive director of AHRA. Cronin notes that one of the 2008 recipients developed a seminar to present to other hospitals in the region; others wrote articles on their results for the AHRA’s journal, Radiology Management.

A similar partnership with ACHE gives a boost to midlevel managers who aspire to be leaders in the radiology field. Beginning this year, Toshiba will sponsor scholarships for 60 executives to attend a series of three leadership seminars throughout 2010, 2011 and 2012. “This is a program we developed several years ago to help middle managers move into roles in the C-suite,” Peggy Gordon, vice president of development at ACHE, explains. “It’s very intensive. The seminars happen three times a year, for three days at a time and are given by a very distinguished roster of faculty teaching management and leadership.”

The first 2010 seminar occurs in June and focuses on establishing leadership; the second takes place in August and looks at innovation and overcoming the financial challenges facing the health care industry; and the third, themed Manage for the Future, is slated for October. “Part of the reason for participating in the ACHE program is helping to strengthen health care leadership through quality education,” Wolfe says. “ACHE is an impressive organization in terms of its mission and vision, and of its focus on integrity, which we thought was a good fit with Toshiba.”

Through a fourth, emerging partnership with the Society for Pediatric Radiology, Toshiba has helped the organization develop a survey to address the concerns of pediatric radiologists. “We try to look at ways to collaborate that are more unique, that provide new benefits to the organization and an opportunity for differentiation,” Wolfe says. “We believe in investing in the industry in which we work, and one of the best ways to do that is to help ensure ongoing education of the membership.”

Finally, Toshiba is continuing its support of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography’s (SCCT) Young Investigator Awards.  The SCCT is the leading international professional society dedicated to research, education and clinical excellence in cardiovascular computed tomography (CT), and is now accepting submissions for the fourth annual awards program. Sponsored by Toshiba, the unrestricted educational grants will be awarded to two residents or fellows in either radiology or cardiology for their patient care research in the categories of technical and clinical advancement of cardiovascular CT.  The deadline for submissions is April 2, 2010.   Abstracts are being accepted in two categories – Technology of Cardiovascular CT, or Clinical Applications of Cardiovascular CT.  Applicants may enter by submitting an abstract through the SCCT Web site.

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A study spotlighting the opinions and concerns of chief executive officers, financial officers, and operating officers (C-suite) of U.S. hospitals reveals their top initiatives for 2009. Commissioned by Toshiba and conducted by an independent research company, the survey includes interviews with 60 leading executives throughout the country.

Patient care and safety, improving patient satisfaction and recruiting and retaining leading physicians are the group’s top three concerns today. Another top concern is accessing capital funds to invest in facilities and equipment, not surprising in today’s economic environment.

Carrying on with the theme of improving patient care, most of the institutions surveyed have or will expand or modify their patient safety and quality programs and they have or are increasing administrative time to educate their staff on compliance with safety measures.

When it comes to diagnostic imaging, the C-suite views having state-of-the-art imaging equipment as an important component of their ability to recruit physicians and technical staff and very important to their overall success. They also believe these technologies have improved the speed of diagnoses for heart attacks and stroke.

Other topics addressed in the study include issues related to reimbursement. For instance, have they seen a drop in reimbursement due to the implementation of Medical Severity Diagnostic Related Groups (MS-DRGS)? Nearly 80% said “No.” Or do they plan to increase their percentage of on-staff physicians if MedPAC’s (Medicare Payment Advisory Commission) recommendation regarding restructuring hospital payments based on “Episode of Care” is implemented? (Episode of Care would provide one fixed payment for the treatment of a specific illness and combines the technical fee with the professional fee.) Fifty-seven percent said “Yes, they would consider hiring more staff physicians.”

The study was completed in December 2008. A copy of the complete results of the study are available for customers by contacting Mary Kienstra, senior research analyst, Toshiba, at mkienstra@tams.com.

This acquisition brings in-house critical core competencies — the development of 3D volume rendering and advanced visualization capabilities for all Toshiba modalities. In addition, Toshiba now is capable of conducting R&D twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, ensuring that the medical community gets the most advanced technologies possible.

“The formation of TMVS establishes a significant multi-modality research and development center in Europe,” said Kenichi Komatsu Ph. D., president and CEO, Toshiba Medical, “ensuring Toshiba’s unfettered access to leading-edge technology in an area of the world widely acknowledged for its innovations in medicine. This also demonstrates Toshiba’s strong commitment to our customers in Europe as well as the healthcare industry worldwide.”

Toshiba is patterning this acquisition after the 2006 acquisition which resulted in the creation of Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA, Inc. (TMRU), a wholly–owned subsidiary. TMRU is a significant research and development center of advanced imaging technologies and clinical applications in the U.S. Combined with Toshiba’s R&D capabilities in Japan, the company undertakes development efforts worldwide on a 24-hour basis.

Toshiba’s global research entities support clinical programs in partnership with luminary academic institutions worldwide to accelerate research and development of clinical applications using Toshiba’s advanced imaging systems.