Going forward, these costs will be in our run-rate but serve as an opportunity to operate more efficiently in the future. Let’s start with our Imaging segment on Slide 8, where we generated organic revenue growth of 4% year-over-year. This was driven by improved backlog conversion and price. Growth was up against fourth quarter sales that experienced a strong double-digit increase in 2022. Segment EBIT margin was up 10 basis points year-over-year as we made progress on enhancing gross margin. Imaging equipment growth outpaced service growth in the quarter and for the year, which impacted margin mix as we build our installed base with future service growth opportunity. We saw strong progress in our product platforming initiatives across several modalities, including CT and MR.
Customer demand for our imaging product remains healthy and our growing backlog is driven by new product introductions. Turning to Ultrasound on Slide 9. Organic revenue was down 2% year-over-year due to the impact of lower volume tied to a challenging comparison for the same period last year. We continue to have a positive outlook for this segment as we enter 2024. Segment EBIT margin declined year-over-year due to investments such as the Caption Health artificial intelligence integration. This year-over-year margin decline was partially mitigated by cost productivity as we drove standardization and commonality across our platforms. As we exited the year, we saw opportunities for Ultrasound equipment based on a combination of our commercial efforts and improving market conditions.
With recent customer commitments and interest in new products enhanced by AI technology, we are well positioned as we enter 2024. Moving to Patient Care Solutions on Slide 10. Organic revenue was up 4% driven by progress on price and operational process improvements. Revenue increased as we fulfill more backlog in addition to contribution from NPIs. Similar to Imaging, recall that sales growth in the fourth quarter last year increased double digits due to easing supply chain environment. PCS margin decreased 320 basis points compared to last year driven by investments and onetime favorability that we experienced in the prior year. During the quarter, the team delivered on improved supplier lead times and lower inventory. As we look ahead, we’re excited about recent product launches that should contribute to future growth.
Finally, moving to Pharmaceutical Diagnostics on Slide 11. We have another solid quarter, generating 23% year-over-year organic growth associated with an easier year-over-year comparison and pricing. Segment EBIT margin of 24.4% improved 140 basis points year-over-year driven by price, volume and productivity actions. We’re encouraged by the continuing strength of global imaging procedures, which drives the need for imaging agents. We are executing on our innovation strategy through investments in our pipeline across care areas, including the in-licensing of FAPI assets, which we believe will play a key role in targeting this protein to detect certain types of cancer. This is an area of significant potential for the nuclear medicine and oncology communities.
Turning to Slide 12, I’ll walk through our cash flow performance. We exited the year with an improved financial profile, including a stronger balance sheet and enhanced financial flexibility to support our future growth. We generated free cash flow of $956 million during the fourth quarter, down $31 million year-over-year with standalone cash outflows. Inventory turns improved in the quarter, the highest they have been since the beginning of 2021. This is the result of our lean supply chain actions. We saw operational improvements, including lead time reductions and greater inventory turns in all segments. Our aged inventory balance decreased, and we have stronger input controls in place, including safety stock reduction and optimized stock planning.
In addition, our collections improved as a result of our focused daily management system. For the year, we delivered strong free cash flow of over $1.7 billion. This equates to 95% free cash flow conversion. We also strengthened our balance sheet by paying down $1 billion of debt since the start of the fourth quarter. With a strong balance sheet and a balanced capital allocation strategy, we’ll continue to focus on organic and inorganic investment, deleveraging and paying a dividend. Now let’s turn to our outlook on Slide 13. For 2024, we expect organic revenue growth to be approximately 4%. This compares to strong growth of 8% in ‘23 that was driven by easing supply chains and price gains. I would note that we expect a foreign exchange headwind to revenue of less than 1% in 2024.
We expect full year adjusted EBIT margin to be in the range of 15.6% to 15.9%, representing expansion of 50 to 80 basis points, given the progress we’re making with volume, commercial execution and optimization. We assume an adjusted effective tax rate in the range of 23% to 25%. The Pillar 2 global minimum tax is not anticipated to have a significant impact on our tax expense in 2024. On adjusted EPS, we expect to deliver between $4.20 and $4.35 for the full year, representing growth in the range of 7% to 11% versus 2023. Lastly, we expect to deliver free cash flow of approximately $1.8 billion for the full year. While we don’t give quarterly guidance, it’s important to note that given the seasonal nature of our business, the fourth quarter is typically the strongest period for orders, sales dollars and adjusted EBIT margin.
We expect year-over-year organic revenue growth and adjusted EBIT margin in the first quarter to be the lowest of the year. Also remember that organic sales growth in the first half of 2023 was very strong at 11%. As a result, organic revenue growth is expected to be stronger in the second half of the year versus the first half in 2024. To wrap up, we’re entering 2024 from a position of strength as we executed well in 2023. Our solid backlog, order intake and adjusted EBIT margin progress gives us confidence in our ability to deliver on our guidance for 2024. Now I’ll hand the call back over to Pete.
Peter Arduini: Thanks, Jay. Through an emphasis on R&D, we continue to innovate across our four segments. Our new product vitality index, which measures new products contributing to orders in the year, was healthy at 26%. We launched more than 40 new innovations in 2023 as I noted before, many of which are AI and digitally enabled, bringing more opportunity to increase gross margin with these enhanced capabilities. Earlier, I mentioned our plans to acquire MIM Software, a leader in AI-enabled image analysis and workflow tools across multiple care areas. Once integrated post close, MIM is expected to drive accretive top line growth. And we expect the transaction to be neutral to adjusted EBIT in year 1 and accretive thereafter.
One of the dilemmas our customers face is integrating the variety of multi-vendor AI applications into their workflows. Our new App Orchestrator is a solution that simplifies the AI selection, integration and workflow process for healthcare professionals. By providing easy access to prevalidated apps, we’re helping reduce the pressure that often comes with the overhead of evaluating, acquiring and implementing solutions from many companies. We’re in the process of developing the subscription-based application for the cloud. Our high-growth, high-margin AI solutions are designed to increase productivity, efficiency and diagnostic confidence. Customers have the option to purchase new AI-equipped devices or as an upgrade to existing equipment.
We’re actively pursuing AI across our product portfolio with a focused effort to expedite product development in 2024. Moving to molecular imaging on Slide 15 and the role of MIM Software to enhance our precision care strategy. For starters, our unique portfolio of PET/MR, PET/CT and multi-head SPECT/CT, radio tracers and digital offers providers a comprehensive solution to deliver on this growing field of diagnostics and therapeutics. As novel therapies become more widely available, our tracers play an increasingly important role, putting us at the center of this transformation of care that will help enable better patient outcomes across many care pathways as functional imaging expands. This chart illustrates the diversity of our pharmaceutical portfolio, both existing and in the pipeline, and the diseases that each one uniquely targets.
We see growth opportunities with our existing products like Vizamyl for patients with suspected Alzheimer’s disease as new therapies ramp up and Cerianna for metastatic breast cancer, which are used both in conjunction with PET systems for diagnosis. Flurpiridaz, a pipeline product for diagnosing and assessing coronary artery disease, is expected to significantly advance PET/CT imaging. Cardiologists say it shows promise for a variety of reasons. First, it has the potential to offer more sensitivity and specificity than SPECT and technetium, which is the standard of care. Its longer half-life may allow doses to be ordered and transported longer distances unlike other products on the market, which require on-site production which can be a limiting factor for smaller hospitals and cardiac imaging centers.
One of the most exciting advancements in molecular and functional imaging is Theranostics. There is a motto for this rapidly growing field that allows you to see what you treat and treat what you see. Theranostics combines diagnostic imaging equipment, radiopharmaceuticals, both diagnostics and therapeutic, with the goal of eliminating cancer cells without affecting healthy tissues. And this has fewer side effects for patients. This approach can bring significant improvements for many cancer types and one of the reasons why molecular imaging has a very promising future. To give you some perspective, currently, the overall Theranostics market, which includes equipment, tracers and therapies, is approximately $9 billion and is expected to grow to $40 billion by 2032.
