The Impact of Internet Teleradiology on Healthcare

Last Updated on Friday, 19 November 2010 12:23 Written by admin Saturday, 2 January 2009 03:49

Although no reasonable person wants to put a price tag on human life, the fact is that cost is the major issue surrounding health care in the U.S. today. While most of this is due to the privatized, profit-driven nature of the U.S. system of health care, part of it is in fact a function of supply and demand, particularly as the number of patients requiring medical services increase and the more and more medical school graduates, burdened with half a million dollars in student loan debt choose high-paying specialties over primary care.

Teleradiology is made possible by today’s Internet technologies, and promises to reduce costs by making better use of resources.

What Is Teleradiology?

Simply defined, teleradiology is the transmission of medical images over the World Wide Web and Local Area Networks. This allows for consultation with qualified radiologists in remote locations, allowing them to provide services without having to be on-site with the patient. It is also vital for hospitals and clinics in smaller, under-served communities who need the services of rare specialists such as neuropathology, pediatric medicine and osteology during off-hours, making it an excellent tool for telemammography.

How It Works

In the early days, teleradiology was quite limited, depending on telephone lines for transmission. With the event of high-speed Internet service and fiber-optic cable, hundreds of large images can be sent virtually instantaneously. Image-compression software make this even more efficient, while new security technologies such as voice-recognition and 128-bit encryption insures that such images are delivered only to those medical professionals authorized to receive and view them.

VRN

Choosing Radiology Monitors

Last Updated on Friday, 19 November 2010 12:06 Written by admin Sunday, 8 November 2009 12:39

Unlike viewing most images online, medical images require exceptionally high-resolution monitors. As the health care imaging industry becomes increasingly digitized, images can be displayed almost anywhere in a facility or even over the World Wide Web.

One of the primary challenges is consistency, particularly when it comes to grayscale images such as x-rays. Typical computer monitors, even high-end ones, lack complete consistency when it comes to their grayscale characteristics. This variation may even occur between monitors of the same model.

The DICOM Part 14 imaging protocol is rapidly becoming the standard of grayscale adjustment among the different monitors that are being used throughout the industry; any monitor that is chosen should be compliant with this standard.

Area and Aspect Ratio

It goes without saying that when it comes to monitors, bigger is in fact better

For Flexibility, Choose Radiology PACS

Last Updated on Friday, 5 November 2010 01:33 Written by admin Friday, 12 June 2009 12:53

Now is a great time for small and medium-sized medical centers, imaging centers, veterinary and dental offices, podiatry and chiropractic offices, hospitals and radiology departments to select a Radiology PACS that is right for your facility. Dicom Solutions, a medical imaging distributor and systems integrator, offers a wide range of different Radiology PACS as well as ris pacs suitable for your medical office. There are many benefits that come from using digital images, but perhaps the greatest is the flexibility that digital imaging can offer your medical team.

Radiology PACS is short for Picture Archival and Communication Systems, and it is a medical software. It allows an ordinary personal computer to be able to read, send, receive and archive medical digital images, using the World Wide Web as the conduit for communications. Ris pacs refers to a Radiology Information System, which allows you to create patient records, schedule appointments, and bill for services. Combining the digital images with the patient data makes for a completely digital organization of all of your important patient information.

Initially, Radiology PACS were only used by large hospitals because the cost was too prohibitive for smaller facilities. Thankfully, that is now a thing of the past, because you can select a system sized to the number of personnel and specific needs suitable for your medical office. Systems are also easily expandable to take care of current usage levels as well as anticipate future growth.

Another major benefit that comes from using digital imaging software is the ability to easily archive patient records and also create back ups. Compliance with HIPPA regulations mandates archiving records for several years. Disaster recovery is also important as part of your emergency preparation and by using Radiology PACS you have a great deal of flexibility in how you archive. You can save information to CDs and DVDs, for example. You can choose to use a RAID array to save data to multiple hard drives. You can also perform routine back ups of your information at an off-site server, which protects you if disaster strikes.

Smaller facilities benefit from web-based Mini-PACS available from Dicom Solutions. A mini-pacs is a fully self-contained unit that functions like a full enterprise pacs system but on a smaller scale. At less than $5,000 to get set up, this offers the flexibility and cost effectiveness that smaller imaging, chiropractic and orthopedic centers need.

You can find out about these and other Radiology PACS and ris pacs features from Dicom Solutions.