Throughout the United States, health care institutions are being confr
onted with a technology that will fundamentally change the way they do
business: electronic image management, or EIM. At institutions such a
s the University of Michigan Medical Center, for instance, EIM is repl
acing expensive films and archives with on-line images. The advantage
to patients: faster, more accessible diagnostic services. The risk to
institutions: those that fail to go on line may soon be out of the pic
ture.