Sharing Radiographic Images

[carolyn]

I am the vc technology "guru" for a multi-state/campus children's hospital After 4 years of implementing this technology throughout the enterprise, it looks as though it is finally awakening the senses of the medical "side of the street" with our push towards greater unity among our campuses and outside affiliates.

Anyway, I am meeting with a doctor next week to get a hands on look at the material they want to share/present in vc's. Apparently they've attempted netmeeting (internal only) to view these images in the past and the detail just isn't there.

I've been doing some research and am looking for some feedback from anyone doing this sort of image sharing. I know it will most likely lead to the need for more specialized hardware....but anything i can get would be helpful.

We are all polycom(mostly FX's...stand alone application), mgc100, IP is internal only, all graphic material and such is shared internally through pc netmeeting seperate from vc and has to be. we do use/have used internet based sharing...webex, etc and are looking to standardize this as netmeeting goes away. many graphics presentations to outside sites is done with a secondary camera at this point simply due to far end (s) support and capabilities being absent and we have been doing fine...but i know this probably wont hold true for more highly defined material such as these radiographic images and x-rays(coming soon in our environment)

Also, Radiology is implementing PACS enterprise wide...I have to get more up to speed with that...as it may be my answer..however, I am curious........Thanks for you suggestions in advance :)

[Oliver Black]

The easy answer is... it depends. When we started in telemed, we mounted the x-ray viewers on a wall opposite the telemed camera, and the physicians would use FECC to move the camera and zoom in on points of interest. Document cameras are sometimes used, but the Doc's don't have the control of a remotely operated camera... This was fine for our Ortho Docs and general Docs. BUT...

Radiological scans must adhere to radiological standards. Basically a 2000 dpi image is what is needed. Radiologists cannot read and won't read anything less. The current standard is DICOM and we have a PACS system here that adheres to those standards. A good general DICOM viewer software is eFilm and you can get a demo copy at www.efilm.ca if you like. The images are moved about by 'pushing' and 'pulling' them from one station to another. This just touches the surface of radiological imaging but I hope it helps...

[carolyn]

Thanks Oliver..this looks great. I will let you know how it goes!!!

[mbtmike]

The efilm solution is great but the cost of monitors gets pretty high. showing 200Dpi images certain places have monitor requirements to ensure the best image is being viewed..The size of these images will also have impact on network if no QOS is in place be carefull on a VC network.. (nature of File Transefer)..

[bmoores]

If the radiology that you need to send is only reference quality SXGA, you can use a H.239 enabled VTC system as any number of the web based PACS client viewers can be sent as a desktop. This of course is not diagnostic quality for Radiologists but it is good for distance education and many other presentations.