In the mid-1990s, teleradiology held promise as a way of connecting hospitals with clinics and radiologists in remote locations. Teleradiology would allow managed care organizations to select high-quality providers at low cost and keep services and dollars within their systems. It was also convenient for general radiologists to provide night, weekend, and vacation coverage and to allow them to participate on weekends or evenings in making initial emergency diagnoses at home. The radiologists would still have to go to the hospital, but not in such a rush.
Jeffrey Landman, MD, a successful neuroradiologist and founder and chairman of two outpatient imaging centers, was experimenting with beta sites for early teleradiology equipment, trying to figure out how to...