Clinical Commercial Product

The Imaging Value Journey and Delivery Matrix

Follow a patient from population risk to population health and see where the imaging industry shows up and where it disappears. Then examine exactly who owns each of the 15 foundational requirements to deliver imaging at scale. Every column except the last is the health system doing the work.

Erik Abel, PharmD, MBA  |  Founder, OneAnother Health   ·   June 2026   ·   Interactive supplement to The Pathway Illusion in the Imaging Industry
This interactive supplement accompanies The Pathway Illusion in the Imaging Industry, which makes the structural case for reframing the imaging sector’s strategic identity from pathway orchestrator to platform participant.

Interactive journey showing where the imaging industry contributes across the care continuum, from population risk identification to population health, where vendor presence is lowest.

The Imaging Value Journey

Follow a patient from population risk to population health. The ribbon shows where the imaging industry shows up, and where it disappears. Select any stage.

Vendor presence index across the continuum

Index reflects how much of each stage the incumbent model is built to deliver, scored on the same owns, partial, and opportunity scale used in the matrix below. Directional, generalized from a point-of-care ultrasound program blueprint, and uneven across vendors.

The industry lives in the middle of the journey, at acquisition and reporting. It thins toward both population ends. Population health and total cost of care is the clearest blind spot, because imaging produces little structured data that payers and value-based programs can act on. None of this is new. It has been visible across forty to fifty years of capital-equipment relationships.

Owner roles are representative, not exhaustive. Vendor presence is a directional estimate. OneAnother Health  |  research.erikabel.org

The Full Responsibility Breakdown

The journey shows the pattern. The matrix shows exactly who owns what at each of the fifteen requirements to stand up and sustain an imaging solution. Every column except the last is the health system doing the work.

The Imaging Delivery Matrix

Standing up and sustaining a clinical imaging solution takes far more than a device. Here is who actually owns each requirement, and how little of it the incumbent vendor model has ever been built to deliver.

15Foundational requirements to deliver imaging at scale
3Fully owned by the vendor today
4Partially touched by the vendor
7Recognized for decades, still unbuilt
Owns it Partial Opportunity, unbuilt Not applicable
When systems do not share images, the patient becomes the integration layer. Prior studies still move between providers on a CD or DVD, and reports often travel without the images they are based on. The cost of that fragmentation lands on the health system, the ordering provider, and the patient, who is the least equipped to carry it.
Every column except the last is the health system doing the work. The vendor footprint is the thin band on the right. None of these gaps is new. They have been visible across forty to fifty years of capital-equipment relationships, and the operating model to own them was never built.

Generalized from a point-of-care ultrasound program blueprint. Owner roles shown are representative, not exhaustive. OneAnother Health  |  research.erikabel.org

What This Means For You

For imaging OEMs

The unbuilt cells are uncontested whitespace

The opportunity columns are not a critique to absorb. They are the platform position no incumbent has claimed. The first mover to own the integration and structured-data layers converts a vendor relationship into a partner relationship that competitors cannot bid against.

For health systems

Use it as a vendor-diligence lens

Ask any imaging partner which of these requirements they own, which they support, and which they leave to you. The honest answer predicts how much of the delivery burden lands on your staff, your budget, and your patients.

For adjacent technology

The opportunity cells are a roadmap

EHR, AI, interoperability, and platform players read the same gaps as open territory. Cross-system image sharing and population-health structured data are the clearest near-term openings.

From vendor to partner

The path forward is not more device features. It is owning the layers that make imaging follow the patient and inform the pathway, the structured data, the cross-system sharing, and the population-health contribution. That is the platform-participant role argued in The Pathway Illusion, and the responsibility map above is where it gets built. The whitespace is real, and it is still uncontested.

Method and limitations. The vendor presence index and the matrix footprint are directional, generalized from a point-of-care ultrasound program blueprint, and uneven across vendors. Owner roles are representative, not exhaustive. The supplement is intended as a strategic lens, not a procurement specification. OneAnother Health  |  research.erikabel.org

Related Research

← Back to Research Hub