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>