George D., OT, or just another branch of the story...
rsna.org
There will be some systems built to archive the radiology images. The big names will be here too. I did some research once and the standard (DICOM) of still images cannot be compressed very much, for fear of compressing a 2 mm lesion out of the pic. Then throw in all the moving images and 2-3 D, and the PAC evolution will be interesting. HWP sold the money losing medical division to Philips. Siemans bought Accuson. Would like to see some SANs move into this area.
The infoRAD area of the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) promises to be even more valuable and exciting than in past years. Once again, infoRAD will be located on the main floor (Level 3) of the Lakeside Center (East Building) at McCormick Place. In the exhibit area, you will find over 100 educational exhibits in the following categories: Decision Support, Education, Image Manipulation, Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), and New Technologies. This year, authors of selected exhibits will be present during scheduled interactive "special emphasis presentations" at 12:00 pm–1:30 pm on Sunday and 9:30 am–11:00 am Monday through Friday. Each day will feature presentations from a different major area of interest. Attendees of these special sessions can earn category 1 continuing medical education (CME) credit. As in previous years, a number of commercial exhibits will also be located in the infoRAD area.
The infoRAD theaters will be used again for presentations on topics related to the exhibits in the area. These presentations do not require advance tickets. New for this year will be two special hour-long "how-to" panel sessions on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, beginning at 3:00 pm.
Two refresher courses—both "hands-on" PACS workshops—will be presented in the infoRAD area. One course offers basic instruction in "How to Use a PACS Workstation," and the other provides advanced guidance in "How to Configure and Tune a PACS." These two workshops will be repeated at various times during the week, as indicated in the Refresher Course listing. Advance tickets are required, and the limited number of seats (75 per session) most likely will be reserved early, but, as in previous years, "no-shows" have provided ample opportunity for walk-ins to gain admission.
Once again this year, the workshop "The Integrated Radiology Department: A Hands-on Workshop" will be presented three times during the week in the same classroom used by the infoRAD refresher courses. This workshop will demonstrate the interaction of the radiology information system (RIS), hospital information system (HIS), and PACS at the workstation of the radiologist. This presentation is not a sequential course and is repeated to provide access to a larger number of participants. As with the refresher courses, advance tickets are needed and the seats will likely fill up early, but walk-ins have a very good chance of being admitted, especially later in the week.
The very popular tutorial on the Internet will be presented once again by the National Library of Medicine. This presentation will highlight the "Next Generation Internet" and what it will mean to the radiologist.
New to infoRAD this year is a Web-based classroom with three different courses in the Refresher Course series: "How to Get Radiologic Images into Your Personal Computer," "How to Make Electronic-based Presentations," and "How Your Radiology Practice Can 'Work the Web.'" As with the other refresher courses previously described, these three courses will be repeated during the week. The courses will provide another hands-on experience for participants and will be exclusively Web-based.
As in prior years, commercial hands-on computer workshops will be available for participants to learn the basics of PACS and integration with the RIS. These sessions, which are available throughout the week, will allow attendees the opportunity to see how different vendors approach these issues, but CME credit is not offered.
The IHE is in its 2nd year, and the demonstrations by the vendors involved will show the advances that have been made since last year. New features include indicators in the RIS that PACS images are available, access to radiology information (images and reports) on systems outside the radiology department, access to non-radiology information for the radiologist, and reconciliation of unknown patient information. Other enhancements include more consistent postprocessing presentations, splitting of image sets for interpretation by different radiologists, and improved report management. The demonstrations will highlight these improvements as well as present an overview of the IHE process.
Guided tours will again be offered every day except Friday. These tours have been a perennial favorite with attendees and offer an excellent introduction to the many exhibits and events in infoRAD and IHE. Authors are present at the exhibits between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm. Preregistration is required. Tours will be approximately 30–45 minutes.
The military will demonstrate their Project Prometheus, which involves the re-engineering of the radiology business process. This project utilizes integrated systems to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of services.
Handheld computers, personal digital assistants, and connected organizers—whatever you choose to call small portable computing devices—are growing more powerful every day and are beginning to become an important part of the healthcare landscape. These devices will make their presence felt at infoRAD this year. A demonstration area dedicated to exhibits that use handheld computers will premier at infoRAD 2000. Also new this year, attendees will be able to download key information about RSNA 2000 to handheld computers by using |
