PACS Divorce Rate Spikes!

PACSman: So why aren’t second PACS purchases flawless? One only needs to look at marriage and divorce statistics to understand. It is pretty much agreed by most experts that first marriages end in divorce about 40 to 50 percent of the time. The PACS “divorce rate” is much higher than that.

What surprises me is that the divorce rate increases with second marriages to 60 percent and more, while third marriages end in divorce at least 70 percent of the time. Does that mean third generation PACS are more doomed than second?
One would think that an individual who has gone through a marriage and divorce would have “learned his (or her) lesson” and will, therefore, not repeat the mistakes of the past. Alas, this is often not the case. Those who marry to fulfill certain needs, but are not prepared to give in return, usually marry with the same intent the next time around.
The same holds true with PACS. The second or replacement PACS becomes nothing more than a walk down a precipice, a courtship leading to fresh disaster, only because it involves a new partner.

Avoid Disaster
So how do you avoid the disaster? Make a list of what you liked and didn’t like with your first PACS. Evaluate your new PACS partner not just by the freshness they bring to the relationship but by how well they performed during the time you were together.
In doing the detailed evaluation and assessment, it is important to understand that while newer systems might perform better – after all it does run on newer hardware and is one of the primary reasons why you are upgrading – you have to also ask if the better performance helps you or hinders you? That may sound contradictory, but sometimes faster and cheaper isn’t always what you need, especially if you lose a feature you really used before.
Look at the company’s track record in delivering what they promised relative to software updates and upgrades. Did they meet the promised delivery dates? Did it work right the first time? Did it include everything that they said it would or merely provided a fraction of what they said?

Get the Top 10 Considerations for PACS Replacement here and read the complete article in the April issue of Imaging Technology News

Wii Takes the Controls from PACS

Ms. PACS: Wii may have just made it's way into medical imaging - in particular PACS. Now you can use Wii for more than just virtual bowling, tennis or any other Wii sport. The Wiimote lets you zoom, pan, scroll, and more, remotely.

The Wii remote is interfaced with GlovePIE, allowing the end user to interface with images, scroll through a CT volume data set. GlovePIE is a program that lets you turn a Wii Remote into a mouse, joystick, or even script it for unique functions in games and software.

The developer says this is where Radiology reads a case in a “Minority Report" kind of way. Check out the video demo. The developer says, "This is a simple example of me interfacing for window/level, zoom, pan & slice scrolling features on a CT set of images."

Maybe you can be a WiiPACS beta site! According to the developer, he says, "I’m open to suggestions!”

Cloud Storage - More than Just Hot Air

Ms. PACS: It's like, everyone catches on to a concept and it's the most incredible thing since the PACSman shaved his beard.

Seriously - cloud storage is the new BIG Idea...at least in Radiology...while the rest of the IT world has been raving about it...and we as consumers have been using it on Google and Amazon...but - with the exception of tech-savvy you - didn't realize how good we had it up there on cloud 9. In fact, the cloud computing craze has become as ubiquitous as its architecture. Did you know that there is a cloud computing magazine and trade show? Soon we'll see an action figure: Cloud Man, Cloud Ranger, or the Stormy Cloud Guy (the moodier younger brother). But first, before we cash in on the next Disney movie, let's take a step back.

When Amazon introduced its virtual computing environment, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud or EC2, it created awareness about brought cloud computing in the consumer environment. What Amazon’s customers liked was they paid only for what they used.

The popularity of cloud computing has also reached new heights in medical imaging for its capacity to cost-effectively archive large volumes of imaging data.

How it works: Organizations pull up the image on their PACS, send it to a patient or another facility and send it to a cloud client that sits on their desktop. The image goes to an offsite server, is temporarily stored, until the receiving physician or radiologist accesses it. That provider, who is sent an e-mail notification, can choose to simply view the image on his or her desktop, burn it to a CD, or push it out to the facility’s own PACS.

As evidenced at RSNA 2009, several vendors staked their claim to cloud computing (these were off of the top of my head - i'm sure there are many more - maybe we could start a NEW Radiology in the Clouds trade show:)
- Candelis is an early adopter, leveraging cloud-based computing and storage to make its suite of medical software solutions available via cloud-hosted services.
- InSite One Inc. was also one of the first to offer, pre-RSNA, medical data storage in a cloud environment.
- DR Systems’ Electronic Medical Information Exchange called eMix is a cloud computing-based, vendor-neutral technology that eliminates the need for the provider facility to burn CDs, print films, or fax reports. It also facilitates universal access to medical imaging for a complete EMR.
- Accelerad’s software-as-a-service solution (SaaS), SeeMyRadiology.com, utilizes cloud computing architecture to store all client images on a centralized cluster of servers, providing access to medical images across the entire healthcare continuum.
- Merge Healthcare provides RIS, PACS and disaster recovery solutions in a cloud computing platform. The cloud-hosted solutions also enable rapid implementation of a RIS or PACS.
- **lifeIMAGE is a platform connecting patients and providers to medical imaging studies and reports through two core components. First, for hospitals and imaging centers, its a Local Appliance (LILA) to manage imaging exams introduced by patients on portable media such as a CD. Next lifeIMAGE.com is a cloud-based environment for image sharing and storing between patients and referring physicians.

**I have to say The Dalai of PACS tipped me off to this one. Patient power is a good thing - it should make them more responsible and better advocates for their own health care. No more baby sitting. And they have more data when insurance companies try to re-neg on reimbursing patients for just breathing in a hospital. Do you ever notice how the insurance company bills you....even when they are supposed to cover the bill? Don't get me started:)

Now, you get 10 Bonus Points if you can unravel this mystery lyric:
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

Is the future of PACS up in the air? You bet it is. Why? According to Mitch Goldburgh, InSite One, it's because:

1) The distinction of data storage and archiving have been blurred;
2) There are no DICOM or HL7 messages for deleting data;
3) Retention rules for digital information is about to become even more complex with the adoption of health information exchanges where retention requirements extend beyond any single institution.

That's why at HIMSS 2010 expect to see a resurgence of hosted solutions for primary applications and storage service providers. Revolving around the term ‘cloud’ are virtual services offering a lot of benefits for access to new applications, data storage, and imaging exams across the hospital.

So, do you think you got it nailed down?

PACSman: Every time someone mentions cloud computing I think of the Rolling Stones “I said hey! (hey) you! (you) get off of my cloud….” or Judy Collins from her song Both Sides Now (“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down and still somehow, It’s clouds illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds…at all.”), not the Sound of Music like Ms P is fond of hyper-linking too. She is a true Maria in every sense of the word, waiting for some Austrian goober to sweep her off her feet so they can go hand in hand into the mountains singing Edelweiss together…Now I admit that the relationship that Christopher Plummer and Julia Andrews had was idyllic in every sense of the word but…it’s the movies…let’s get real….
Big idea? Since when? Like clouds, the CONCEPT of cloud computing in healthcare has been around for quite some time and got a lot of fluff at RSNA but it’s still a few years from being accepted by healthcare providers, insurance companies and others, with other areas like cloud-based archiving even further away.
Yes I know there is a cloud computing magazine Ms P- I subscribe to it actually- and if you are out in San Jose March 15-18 and have $2,000 that isn’t earmarked for anything else you can attend Cloud Connect (http://www.cloudconnectevent.com/) one of several Cloud trade shows that are popping up like…well…...clouds…
Craze? Not hardly. Most of what was shown at RSNA was either in the concept stage (RSNA= Real System Not Available) or just getting installed and at the alpha testing stage. I’d hesitate to say few vendors had that have even made it into beta testing yet….but they still were neat to look at.
There are still way more questions than there are answers about cloud computing. The first is insuring that everything you get from one PACS easily translates to another via the common viewer. This takes much more than performing a simple DICOM query/retrieve. When you convert data from one PACS to another (or to a common standard like vendor neutral archives (VNA) have) you may lose things like grey scale presentation states (GSPS) or some database information. This hasn’t quite been figured out yet completely. Then there are the patient confidentiality issues, the HIPAA conformance issues, and a host of others. Some of the papers I’ve seen from clouds supporters are claiming cost savings against sending CD’s out to primary care physicians (PCP’s) at a cost of $30 or more, but is this claim real? For them obviously yes, but for the rest of the market its more a resounding no. Very few hospitals I know send out CD’s to PCP’s. Most use image distribution via the web that is inherent to most PACS allowing PCP’s to select the studies they want to see. Most outpatient imaging centers hand the CD’s to patients to BRING to their doctors as well at a cost of maybe $0.50, with most of this for the CD case and label.
Clouds biggest claim to fame is that a PCP can do a single log and using a single viewer look at all images from multiple disparate PACS from different facilities without having to log onto several different systems saving time (and in the process, money).
So how many showed cloud computing ar RSNA? Too many and not enough.
Does cloud have potential? Cointenly…
Is it ready for prime time today? Cointenly not. I give it a couple of years to work out the bugs then we can talk about clouds like it’s Jack Johnson (aka the Great White Hope) instead of just some overweight pugilistic punching bag full of hot air who wants to overthrow the existing incumbent PACS.Cloud computing has potential but it needs to spend some time in the gym yet working on establishing it’s knockout punch before it steps into the ring against established PACS that are working already. HIMSS should be interesting for sure but the end users have to feel comfortable turning everything over to an unknown and unseen enterprise and that may take a little getting used to…So time will tell….Stay tuned…

3D is Not only Fun, It’s Coming to a PACS Near You

Ms. PACS: If you’re still hemming and hawing over the uneventful technologies on display at RSNA this year, then you definitely missed the fun at the Fuji booth. It was fun and funny to see radiologists ogling over a tomosynthesis viewer, while wearing 3D glasses on top of their own spectacles.

Does that mean 3D mammography plus 3D glasses adds up to 6D? I’m not sure, but they call it 3Dimensional Stereo Digital Mammography and the images definitely popped off the screen. Actually, they were viewing 3D images acquired from a full-field digital mammography system instead of individual slices displayed in 2D from 3D data sets. The idea is to see behind overlapping structures and read breast-imaging exams faster.

McKesson also featured a 3D monitor for viewing 3D clinical images - a heart beating in the air. If this type of visual enhancement proves to be useful for diagnostic accuracy, there may already be millions of radiologists in training – but most of them busy playing AVATAR.


Since, Mitsubishi made 3D video gaming a reality earlier this year with the release of Nvidia 3D technology on one of its 3D-enabled TVs, as well as on home entertainment PCs, with a souped up graphics card of course, software now creates 3D imagery from regular video games, and some day regular 3D volume data sets.

By the way, Avatar is a new video game that uses the same 3D technology as the James Cameron sci-fi movie, also called Avatar. Talk about back to the future, it’s like 3D at the movies in the 1950s when Hollywood was losing viewers to TV and released 3D flics to regain popularity. Hmmm...sounds like Hollywood today is banking on AVATAR to do the same.

Back to reality, in a study presented at RSNA 2009, and conducted at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., researchers used 3D stereotactic surface projection (3D-SSP) software to improve accuracy in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease. 3D-SSP has been used in some centers and is thought to improve the accuracy of experts, said Vance Lehman, M.D., lead author of the study, which included 54 patients (23 normal and 31 cognitively impaired individuals). Two readers with less than one year of experience and two nuclear medicine experts with at least 10 years of experience viewed and rated all the PET scans. The readers ranked the scans from 1 to 5, with 1 as a normal scan and 5 as severe dementia. They also evaluated the scans for diagnostic confidence, with 1 as uncertain diagnosis and 5 as complete diagnostic certainty. During the 3 to 3.5 years of patient follow-up, no one in the normal group developed cognitive impairment, which confirmed their initial diagnosis. To my knowledge, the images were not projected on 3D-enabled monitors nor were the clinicians wearing 3D glasses, but don’t be surprised if they do in a follow-up study.

Now that it’s looking more and more likely that 3D technology will soon be a common modality to view volumetric, live images in radiology rooms and in the ORs, maybe they should hand out free 3D glasses at next year’s RSNA – and win back some its popularity.

Note: On December 3, LG Display Co. of Seoul, Korea, rolled out, the world’s first commercial launch of 3D LCD panel boasting full HD resolution. The new 23-inch 3D monitor LCD panel is used with shutter glasses that deliver full HD resolution.

PACSman: Some women are easily impressed, and so too it seems to be with Ms P. and 3D. While tomosynthesis is a relatively new technology and has only been around 20 years or so, 3D has actually been around since 1922. Three D had its Golden Era in the mid 50’s, a revival in the 60’s and 70’s and went to a new dimension in the mid 80’s with IMAX film. Today many films can be found in 3D, including the latest from PIxar Studios, Up.

I’ve seen nearly every iteration of 3D imaginable, and while it’s really cool and does have its benefits in healthcare, the costs are still fairly substantial, even though they have dropped in recent years. Processing requirements also remain fairly intense as well. Reimbursement will largely determine whether 3D thrives or dies on the vine, but for now, like its film counterpart, medical 3D is enjoying a revival of sorts.

There was a lot shown at RSNA, but very little was what I consider earth shattering or that helped me justify the $1,500 it cost me to go this year. Unlike the vendors and even Miss P who works for a company, it all comes out of my pocket. Of course with the show being in Chicago Miss P also had the option of sleeping in her own bed at night and didn’t have to spend $225 a night to call some place home, so that’s yet another inequity I had to deal with.

3D really didn’t catch my attention anywhere near as much as it did Ms. P.’s , but then I am the world’s biggest cynic as well and focused mainly on PACS. What did catch my interest was the promotion of cloud-based solutions as an alternative to image distribution via the web… We’re still a few years out from making this a widespread reality and with it commensurate pricing, but the concept is still intriguing nonetheless. So why show it if its not real? RSNA - Real System Not Available. Next question. A few vendors are doing alpha and beta testing of their cloud solutions so within the next year or two these will become more and more real…

So what exactly does a cloud-based system do? Cloud-based systems allow multiple disparate systems to upload images and reports to a central data repository, or "cloud," and then resend them out to various clients from a single site. This is crucial in making a cardiologist, orthopedists or others’ job easier, especially since the clinician typically covers multiple hospitals. Instead of having to log into four, five or six disparate systems at various hospitals or deal with CD’s that all too often don’t work properly, they simply log into the cloud and viola - instant access to all their studies that have been downloaded for them. Of course, like everything, there is a cost associated with this that the hospital pays and currently that costs is quite high, but within a year or so once, these are more than a concept, then you’ll see prices drop.

There were the obvious improvements to PACS that every vendor made a big hoopla over. VNA’s all over the place, data migration services being offered by a host of vendors, and, of course, a number of Rajivs in Ramanathapuram’s Radiology Renderings, Inc. who offered teleradiology services at a price that my dog wouldn’t even touch.

Would I go to RSNA again? I feel the same way that vendors do - you have to go because if you don’t it raises more questions than not, and once you start you can’t stop even though each year its becoming harder and harder to justify the costs. Of course, over 100 vendors out of the 700 or so who displayed at RSNA 2008 didn’t show up at RSNA 2009 - so it does happen. I just can’t let it happen to me, especially since the PACSMan Awards are among the top five stories to come from the floor of the RSNA, and people look forward to a little levity in their lives. God knows we all need some after walking all over creation and back listening to so much bull I feel like I’m in Dallas instead of Chicago. But as I’ve grown to know after more than two decades of shows, it’s all a part of the game…and next year I may even get to see to see RSNA virtual - and in 3D!!