News Updates
by Paula Gould
Aug 25, 2003
No radiology department is an island. So it's
time to bid farewell to point-to-point teleradiology systems and self-contained
filmless imaging departments.
The future of digital imaging rests with seamless information transfer between
different hospital departments, external healthcare providers, and remote
workers, according to speakers at last week's meeting of the International Society
for Strategic Studies in Radiology. Leading academics and top industry
representatives, gathered at the three-day "hot house" meeting in
Paris, outlined a vision for 21st century radiology services built on
enterprise-wide networks, smart data extraction systems, and mobile technology.
"For 30 years, we have been working toward the historic goal of the
all-digital department of radiology. A lot of us thought that was the
goal," said Dr. James Thrall, chair of radiology at Massachusetts General
Hospital. "But if all we do now is convert what we used to do into a
digital form, then we have fallen short of the mark."
Radiologists need to transform their all-digital department into part of an
all-digital healthcare enterprise, Thrall said. This requires adoption of the
"electronic round-trip," in which patient data are only inputted once
and can be accessed wherever and whenever required.
The notion of classic teleradiology, involving case-by-case transmission of
images and notes, should also be rehashed, he said. Remote workers should
instead have full access to their department's RIS and PACS under wide area or
global networking schemes, such as that set up between MGH and radiologists in
Bangalore, India.
Thrall's vision for radically reshaping digital imaging services extends to the
use of information. MGH radiologists have devised a data mining tool to
retrieve thumbnail images and report summaries of past cases from the
department's RIS and/or PACS. A single click then brings up detailed information
on disease characteristics and suggested hotlinks for further information.
Practitioners are also committed to maximizing the value of information
acquired from each diagnostic exam.
"Michaelangelo famously said that it is the artist's function to release
thought imprisoned in matter," Thrall said. "It is now the
radiologist who must learn to release the information imprisoned in the
enormous blocks on image data we routinely obtain."
Dr. Jarmo Reponen, project manager for telemedicine and the electronic patient
record at Oulu University Hospital in Finland, outlined a similar picture of
digital radiology solutions subsumed into electronic healthcare programs. A
pocket-sized terminal capable of displaying diagnostic-quality images, for
instance, has been received enthusiastically by neurosurgeons working at Oulu,
he said.
"Do clinicians care about teleradiology? No. What they care about is an
integrated electronic patient record. They are interested to see the
radiologist's report and images wherever they are working," he said.
"The bottom line when developing imaging processing and telemedicine
systems is how they translate to patient care."