The following are key points to remember from this statement on multimodality imaging in cardiology from the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging:

1. With the growth of cardiac imaging and development of new imaging technologies and techniques, there is a great need for cardiac imagers experienced in multiple imaging modalities. However, there is a lack of existing cardiac imagers with expertise in multiple modalities, and current training programs often lack pathways to adequately train future cardiac imagers in more than one modality.
2. The Task Force on Multimodality Imaging was established by the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging to identify a consensus on developing, promoting, and implementing multimodality imaging to improve patient care. This group identified core principles in imaging training and imaging modality selection.
3. Teams work best when working together in a similar location. This improves the ability to collaborate and discuss cases and provides nonimagers with a central location to seek advice on cardiac imaging. This requires workstations able to access all imaging modalities with standardized formats. This also requires hospitals to break down “silos” between imaging modalities. Clinical meetings to bring together multimodality expertise are also important.
4. Cardiovascular imaging is currently provided by specialists from cardiology, radiology, and nuclear medicine. Collaboration and integration should be a priority, as their different backgrounds may improve patient care due to their complementary expertise.
5. All cardiac imagers with single modality backgrounds should develop a basic understanding of all the other cardiac imaging modalities. These individuals should be encouraged to develop at least a basic ability to perform and interpret other imaging modalities. Training opportunities are needed to facilitate this.
6. Trainees in cardiac imaging should receive training in a multimodality imaging program. This requires integration and collaboration between programs to provide comprehensive training.
7. Trainees specializing in imaging should develop a basic competence in all cardiac imaging modalities, including the ability to perform and interpret simple studies for each. They should achieve full training in at least two different cardiac imaging modalities.
8. There are many barriers to achieving these goals, including financial and management workflows, changes required for cardiac imagers, the need for support from nonimagers, and regulatory changes.
9. Research is needed to determine the clinical and financial effects of a multimodality imaging strategy.

Keywords: Cardiology, Consensus, Diagnostic Imaging, Multimodal Imaging, Nuclear Medicine, Patient Care, Radiography

< Back to Listings