Fiscal Year 2020 Top Accomplishments

Advocacy and Economics

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  • Developed extensive COVID-19 informational members-only resource page on acr.org (member login required).
  • Led a coalition of over 65 medical organizations, representing more than one million providers nationwide, pressing Congress to pass legislation including protections to stop drastic Medicare provider payment cuts due to implementation of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) evaluation and management (E/M) code changes to start Jan. 1, 2021.
  • Submitted extensive comment letters to the CMS in response to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System proposed and final rules with a focus on the CMS’s E/M policy.

Clinical Research

ACR Center for Research and Innovation™ (CRI)

  • The ACR® COVID-19 Imaging Research Registry (CIRR) began in March 2020 with multiple collaborators that can independently create integrated datasets by leveraging TRIAD, RAVE and ACR Connect. CIRR projects include a grant award from the NIBIB Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center (MIDRC) to develop large, open-source COVID-19 Medical Image Database over two years, a partnership with the Society of Critical Care Medicine on their Viral Infection and Respiratory Illness Universal Study Clinical Data Registry in COVID-19, and a partnership with the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute’s Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung Injury (PETAL) network’s COVID-19 observational study.
  • The ACR Fund for Collaborative Research in Imaging (ACR FCRI) awarded three research project grants: creation of a Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) Registry, development of a global standardized follow-up recommendation system for actionable imaging findings (ACT-RADS) and support for the generation of Algorithms for Accurate Adaptive Audit Methods (A4M).
  • New clinical trial activations focused on advanced imaging and therapeutic agents. The 14 trials were activated through the ACR collaborations with ECOG-ACRIN and NRG Oncology and involved ACR staff in protocol development, operations, data management, statistics, and the diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy core laboratory.
  • Eight manuscripts related to ACRIN® or ECOG-ACRIN research studies and 21 related to ACR-staffed NRG Oncology research appeared in peer reviewed journals.
  • The Tomographic Mammography Imaging Screening Trial (TMIST) is ongoing at more than 105 sites across the globe — accruing over 28,000 women — representing a 500% increase in enrollment and 100% increase in participating sites since January 2019.
  • The biomarker-driven DECAMP-1 Plus study commenced with the goal of determining if biomarkers found through simple blood, stool and other tests could one day be used as tools to predict, diagnose or rule out lung cancer.

Member Communication

  • The ACR keeps members and its subscribers informed through a series of e-newsletters including: Advocacy in Action, Weekly Member Update, Quality and Safety e-news, CME Update and more.
  • The Imaging 3.0 case studies team published 27 new Imaging 3.0 case studies (including nine COVID-19 related studies) and two videos. Imaging 3.0 web pages have garnered more than 43,645 unique page views.

Website

  • COVID-19 resources for members and the radiology profession debuted on March 11 and has grown to encompass resource collections covering radiology-specific clinical resources, COVID-19 impact on states, well-being resources, economic and regulatory updates, and more. Cumulatively, these resources have generated 365,000 page views.
  • New users to acr.org have increased 12% since 2019.
  • New DECAMP Biomarker Research website was launched.

Social Media

  • Led the creation of the acr.org/COVID-19 resources hub, which resulted in a 99% percent increase in new user visits — and a 600% increase in social media referrals — to acr.org in Spring 2020.
  • The ACR assumed a leadership role in National Lung Cancer Roundtable (NLCRT) outreach during National Lung Cancer Awareness Month, educating nearly 20,000 referring providers on the value of lung cancer screening.
  • A digital and social media campaign resulted in more than 120 completions of the Mammography CME module on the AMA Ed-Hub™.

Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR®)

  • Impact factor increased 13% in 2019 (a 103% increase since 2012).
  • Special issues included the Quality and Data Science Issue, two ACR Appropriateness Criteria® supplements, and the Money Issue.
  • Focus issues included Survey Methods, Lung Nodules and Screening, and Corporate Transformation of Medicine.
  • Released 24 reader SA-CME activities, a 1.5-SA-CME COVID-19 webinar and a 1-SA-CME reviewer toolkit. It also offered 15 SA-CME per peer reviewer for the year.

ACR Bulletin

  • Awarded a national silver and regional gold award by the American Society of Business Publication Editors for its March 2019 issue.
  • Transitioned to acr.org with new content, including web-exclusive articles and trending stories in the field of radiology. Timely COVID-19 articles are released continually and are among the highest-read content.

Information Technology and Informatics

  • Hosted 160 members, regulators and industry participants at the ACR Imaging Informatics Summit, enabling radiologists to explore artificial intelligence (AI) implementation in healthcare ACR AI-LAB™ demonstrations.
  • The ACR Data Science Institute® (DSI) developed a Pandemic AI Response (PAIR) community to leverage ACR and other resources in the battle against COVID-19 and as a framework for future infectious disease outbreaks.
  • Launched a publicly available archive of COVID-19 teaching cases to support the PAIR initiative.
  • Hosted the virtual 2020 Data Science Summit in conjunction with the Virtual SIIM Annual Meeting with more than 140 registrants.
  • Published a compendium of FDA-cleared AI algorithms related to medical imaging to help radiologists and developers navigate the rapidly evolving market.
  • Established an annual informatics fellowship providing a radiology resident or early career professional with hands-on experience in the field of informatics.

ACR American Institute for Radiologic Pathology (AIRP®)



  • Hosted four four-week radiologic-pathology correlation courses with 1,217 registered attendees and 160 non-U.S. residents.
  • Presented six radiologic-pathology categorical courses with 55 registered U.S. attendees and 47 non-U.S. attendees.
  • Delivered nine international society-sponsored courses with attendees from Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Portugal and Spain.
  • Presented four 2–4-day courses in the United Kingdom, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and India.
  • Exhibited at seven international society meetings where AIRP lectures were given to an estimated 1,835 attendees.

ACR Education Center



  • Offered 40+ courses across 19 topic areas, catering to nearly 1,400 attendees.
  • Expanded offerings to include satellite courses in Arizona and Australia.

Lifelong Learning

Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME®)

  • Almost 16,000 individuals earned more than 148,000 Category 1 CME credits through Case in Point.
  • Radiology-TEACHES® reached 33% of the medical school market, having completed over 10,000 modules, including 345 completions for the COVID-19 module.
  • Approximately 51,900 Category 1 CME credits were earned through Continuous Professional Improvement (CPI) modules.
  • Six new CPI self-assessment modules were released including nuclear, chest, breast, vascular and interventional, genitourinary and emergency imaging.
  • Due to COVID-19, the ACR offered free access to CPI e-books (accessed by 293 residents) and CPI chest e-books (more than 2,100 downloaded by members).

Radiology Leadership Institute® (RLI)

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ACR Foundation

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ACR Governance



  • Converted the ACR 2020 Annual Meeting to a virtual meeting, including caucus meetings, ACR elections and Council deliberations. The ACR Council considered 50 resolutions, including two bylaw amendments, 13 policy resolutions and 31 Practice Parameters and Technical Standards.
  • 121 Fellows of the ACR were inducted during the 2020 Virtual ACR Convocation.
  • 93 e-abstracts were presented at the virtual ACR 2020 Annual Meeting.
  • Launched a chapter grant program to support innovative initiatives at the chapter level.
  • Launched a medical student travel grant program providing funds to bring medical students to the ACR Annual Meeting.

Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute®

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  • Established the Imaging Policy Analytics for Clinical Transformation (IMPACT) research partnership at Emory University. The IMPACT Center conducts and advances collaborative multidisciplinary clinical and policy research that influences imaging professionals.
  • Initiated a project to develop an economic model for mammography that calculates the required improvement in diagnostic performance to justify the adoption and reimbursement of new screening technology.
  • Executed a new contract with the CMS to retain the Medicare 5% sample data and extended available years in the NHPI database and website data tools.
  • Responded quickly to COVID-19 with four studies, partnering with six institutions, to demonstrate the wide-ranging effects on radiology practices during the progression of the pandemic.
  • Published 36 papers in top scientific journals.

Membership Value

ACR Engage member community

  • Celebrated the third anniversary of Engage, the ACR online member community.
  • The ACR offered up to 108.5 CME credits, available at no extra charge, to members who completed free online activities, including Case in Point, JACR CME articles, R-SCAN and Lung Cancer Screening.
  • The ACR Career Center served 22,751 job seekers and 10,724 employers and hosted its first virtual career fair, connecting 221 registered job seekers and 26 employers.
  • 23 chapters received Chapter Recognition Awards for excellence in government relations, meetings/education, membership, and quality and safety.

Patient- and Family-Centered Care



  • The Patient- and Family-Centered Care Commission (PFCC) released its five-year report, “Patient Empowerment: Transforming Patients Into Partners,” highlighting significant achievements by the Commission members.
  • Delivered a toolkit to help radiologists restart their LCS programs in the chronic COVID-19 environment.
  • The PFCC Commission has grown to include 127 radiologists, 25 patients, eight non-radiologists, 13 staff members, eight technologists and three researchers.
  • The Lung Cancer Screening (LSC) 2.0 Committee released a webinar series providing advice on how radiologists and practices can implement screening programs.
  • RadiologyInfo.org, a joint collaboration with the ACR and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), has garnered more than two million visits to the website.

Quality & Safety

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  • ACR Appropriateness Criteria began work on 58 Appropriateness Criteria (AC) topics and finalized 43 AC topics in FY 2020. There are 193 diagnostic imaging and interventional radiology AC topics with 942 clinical variants and over 1,720 clinical scenarios.
  • Approved 31 ACR Practice Parameters and Technical Standards and initiated the review of 39 documents.
  • The ACR was renewed through 2027 as an accrediting body for mammography by the FDA.
  • Successful transition to virtual surveys for DICOE and Radiation Oncology Accreditation.
  • Awarded a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation under their Diagnostic Excellence Initiative with aims to reduce harm from erroneous or delayed diagnoses. Under the grant the ACR will develop clinical quality measures focusing on improved adherence to evidence-based recommended follow up imaging for incidentally detected abnormal findings — “Closing the Results Follow-up Loop.”
  • A new webinar series debuted to more than 400 attendees supporting the ACR National Mammography Database.
  • 50,000 radiology professionals pledged to Image Wisely in 2020.