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iPods Used for Medical Images

Posted by samzenpus on from the take-out-the-machine-that-goes-ping dept.

spagiola writes "There's a nice little story on CNN about a doctor in Geneva who has developed ways to use iPods to view medical images. His software, called Osirix (OSS, BTW) enables medical professionals to view medical images on their iPods, saving them and the hospitals they work for thousands of dollars in expensive equipment."

6 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I feel comforted by johahoff · · Score: 5, Informative

    You could have read the article, they just use the iPods to save the photo and carry it around (the photo capability of the iPod was added even after the project was started).

  2. Not what it seems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not exactly what TFA says, they don't 'use' the iPod to 'view', they store the images on the iPod in file mode, so the article could re-written to say:

    Some people have created sofware which allows images to be stored on an external hard drive.

    In other words....

    Nothing to see here, this is not the video/photo ipod in action.

  3. Article by kevin_conaway · · Score: 3, Informative

    Before anyone gets into a tiff about viewing the images on a small iPod screen, I suggest you read the article. The physicians are merely STORING the images on the iPod and then hooking the iPod up to a personal computer (w/nice monitor) to view the images.

    To sum up, RTFA

  4. I don't think this would fly in the US. by jeffs72 · · Score: 3, Informative
    HIPPA is an utter pain in the ass from a compliance perspective, mainly because provisions in it make it very easy to litigate on. Are the images stored in 128 encrypted format on the IPOD? Does the software do journaling to document the identity of those who view it?

    Shame really, our legal system is going to make adoption of new tools (in medicine in particular) difficult.

    Still a neat concept. She should win an award or something just for outside the box thinking.

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  5. Re:I feel comforted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I do medical imaging in the U.S. for a livelihood. I'm pretty sure nobody has ever done a clinical read (e.g. medical evaluation resulting in a report) on the iPod. Anyone who would do that should have their board cert pulled and probably would do something else equally stupid. OSIRIS has been around for a while -- I don't see why it's news. The real issue is medical record privacy and the thought of med images running around on an iPod scares the bejeezus out of the boards or people responsible for HIPAA compliance at most institutions. If leaked, the header info that comes with a DICOM formatted data set easily violates privacy at a level sufficient to trigger a $15k slap on the wrist and/or 6months jail time.

    For most imaging modalities reading on a 14 or 15" is not enough -- though I suppose PET/SPECT and UltraSound may be exceptions. Heck even high quality jpg compression can be lossy enough to cause missed stress fractures.

  6. Re:Medical information security by shotfeel · · Score: 3, Informative

    Take a look at iPod nano: How to use the Screen Lock . It has information for the Nano, and I'm assuming the video iPod is similar.

    Just FYI to the point about how secure it is :

    Screen Lock only locks users out of the user interface. It does not encrypt data on your iPod. For example, if you use Screen Lock and then connect your iPod nano to a computer, you'll be able to manage music on your iPod with iTunes and access all data on it in disk mode (contacts, notes, and any other files you have stored on the iPod).