The Radiological Society of North America will hold its 87th
Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting (RSNA 2001) in Chicago,
November 25 to 30, 2001. The meeting will feature 1670 scientific
paper presentations, 478 poster presentations, and more than 1000
educational exhibits. The technical exhibits are expected to cover
more than 435,000 square feet with nearly 600 companies
participating, including more than 60 first-time exhibitors. A
number of specialized exhibits and demonstrations will be offered
in conjunction with RSNA.
infoRAD
Computer applications in radiologic education and practice will
be presented in the infoRAD area. This area will include technical
exhibits, demonstration areas, and hands-on computer workshops. For
the first time, the 2001 infoRAD will feature specific
demonstrations by developers of medical applications for personal
digital assistants (PDAs).
IHE Year 3
The Year 3 Demonstration of Integrating the Healthcare
Experience (IHE) is a joint project of the RSNA and the Healthcare
Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The Year 1 and
Year 2 IHE Demonstrations presented examples of patient information
integrated throughout the radiology department. The Year 3
demonstration will address making such enhancements viable in
real-world settings.
"IHE has made remarkable progress in improving the availability
of patient information in radiology," said RSNA board liaison for
communications and corporate relations, R. Gilbert Jost, MD. "Now
the challenge is educating radiologists and administrators on how
they can get these benefits in their own institutions."
In addition to the IHE Demonstration, associated workshops will
explore the information technology of a typical healthcare
institution, offer detailed technical information, and present the
experiences of institutions that are already implementing the IHE
Integration Profiles.
In future years, the IHE plans to focus on expanding the process
to other medical specialties, as well as continuing improvements in
the radiology process. For Year 4 and beyond, the IHE plans to
consider general purpose worklists, master person index, desktop
integration, and security enhancements.
SCAR to sponsor HIPAA course
The Society of Computer Application in Radiology (SCAR) will
present a special session of SCAR University entitled "HIPAA: The
Absolute Essentials501 Days and Counting." The panel
presentation, scheduled for Thursday, November 29th, will focus on
practical tips for implementing the new regulations. All attendees
will receive a copy of the SCAR
HIPAA Handbook.
Eliot Siegel, MD, director of diagnostic imaging at the VA
Medical Center, Baltimore, MD and a member of the Editorial Board
of this journal will serve as chair of the panel. The presentation
will include several information technology experts, a private
practice radiologist, a representative from the Department of
Health and Human Services, and legal experts in HIPAA risk
management.
"The clock is ticking on implementing technology solutions that
will address many of the components of HIPAA," said Dr. Siegel.
"Radiologists, radiologic technologists, chief information
officers, and all professionals involved in providing radiology
services must understand how their departments will be affected by
the pending regulations."
Limited copies of the
HIPAA Handbook
will also be available at the SCAR cooperating organization booth
in the IHE, Lakeside Center-Level 3 Hall D, McCormick Place.
Technical exhibits
AMICAS features Internet PACS Software
AMICAS (Booth 2753) will feature their three new Internet picture
archiving and communications systems (PACS): The Personal Office,
Radiology Office, and Enterprise Office suites. These packages are
designed to address the requirements of varying practice sizes
ranging from a solo practitioner to a large multi-facility
installation.
The software packages, based on a single software architecture,
is powered by the company's ForeverPriors archive system. This
system is a Web-based diagnostic medical image archive system that
is designed to provide immediate access to all current and prior
digital imaging studies, without pre-fetch. It is a
DICOM-compliant, vendor-neutral system that is compatible with
existing workstations or medical record viewers from any PACS
system.
Philips Introduces XRES Ultrasound Technology
Philips Medical Systems (Booth 7736) will debut its new ultrasound
image-processing technique, XRES technology. This process, designed
to enhance diagnostic accuracy, performs 350 million calculations
per frame in real-time, analyzes individual pixel groups to detect
prevailing relationships, and adapts the image to assist the human
eye in perceiving patterns within the image.
The resulting ultrasound images are refined evenly throughout
the entire field-of-view, with boundaries and margins enhanced,
subtle tissue patterns revealed, and common ultrasound artifacts
decreased.
The XRES imaging option is available on the ATL HDI 5000 SonoCT
system and is supported on a wide range of HDI broadband scanheads
covering abdominal, obstetrics and gynecology, breast, vascular,
and musculoskeletal applications. ATL HDI 3000, 3500, and 5000
ultrasound systems can be upgraded to XRES technology.
Edge Medical to feature Quix enhancements
Edge Medical Devices (Booth 5539) will debut several enhancements
to its Quix family of products, including a programmable automatic
exposure control, a tilting wall stand, an operator console with a
flexible design, and a sensor platform designed for easy technology
upgrades.
The new computerized detector replaces the standard three-field
fixed automatic exposure control (AEC) with an array of 400
individual sensors covering the detector surface. With this design,
an appropriate three-field pattern is configured automatically
within the sensor array based on the Bucky orientation, eliminating
the need for the equipment to be rotated, regardless of patient
positioning. "This also allows x-ray exposure to be measured far
more accurately because of greater flexibility in detector
positioning and the potential for implementing exam-specific
exposure control patterns," said Edge president A. Robert Sohval,
PhD.
The new tilting wall stand will permit angular adjustment of the
digital Bucky from -15š to + 90š to accommodate upright, recumbent,
and oblique patient exams using a single digital Bucky. A reset
button will automatically return the motorized system to home
position.
The new operator console can adapt to small spaces with a
monitor and keyboard that may be separated from other elements, if
desired.
Instrumentarium exhibits mammography developments--
Instrumentarium Imaging (Booth 8501) will be announcing new
developments in the C-Arm product line. They will display clinical
three-dimensional breast images produced with tuned-aperture
computed tomography imaging technology and the Alara MetriScan
peripheral bone densitometry system. Instrumentarium will also
exhibit several works-in-progress, including full-field direct
digital mammography images produced with a next-generation
amorphous selenium digital detector, and the MammoReader
computer-aided detection (CAD) system for mammography. The Dilon
6800 gamma camera developed specifically for scintimammography and
manufactured by Dilon Technologies will also be shown as a
work-in-progress.
Kodak enhances DR products--
Eastman Kodak Company's Health Imaging division (Booth 1129) will
introduce a new line of digital radiography (DR) products. New
features include the Kodak DirectView EVP software and a new
operator console with the same look and feel of the company's CR
platform. In addition, Kodak will debut its new Total Quality Tool
software, an all-in-one diagnostic package that allows customers to
automatically implement a routine quality control testing program
for DirectView CR 800 and CR 900 systems. With this software, users
can predict maintenance needs before a system failure or decreased
performance occurs.
Siemens addresses practice integration and upgraded imaging
products--
Siemens Medical Solutions' exhibit (Booth 7113) will focus on best
practice integration, as the company displays several new
technologies. The display will feature the syngo software, now the
standard operating platform for Siemens products. The syngo
operator interface utilizes a universal symbolic language that
allows the user to execute several tasks simultaneously and master
various modalities and new applications easily.
Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services will showcase its most
recent version of MagicWeb, which employs the syngo user interface
and includes features such as hanging protocols, distance and
angle, and enhanced display modes.
The Siemens Medical Solutions Nuclear Medicine Group will
highlight the second-generation biograph molecular imager, which
combines positron-emission tomography and computed tomography
technologies into a single system. The Ultrasound Division will
feature the SONOLINE Antares ultrasound imaging system--the first
product to be released jointly by Siemens and Acuson. The Women's
Health section of the Siemens Medical Solutions booth will feature
two full-field digital mammography solutions presented as
works-in-progress. BODY>