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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."

2 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. 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.