iPods Used for Medical Images

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."

Comments

Re:I feel comforted

[johahoff]

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).

Medical information security

[broggyr]

Wouldn't they have to be 'secured' to compy with HIPAA regulations in any way? iPods are easily pocketed, and I would think an iPod with Medical Imaging files on it would be at risk...

Not really thousands of dollars

[spectasaurus]

I work in medical imaging, and I have used Osirix. It is easily one of the best open source image display programs around. The other most notable is Amide, but I digress. Osirix works well for scientists and others looking to save money, but I think physicians would have a difficult time saying it is better then the commercial vendors software. Commercial workstations are tens of thousands of dollars, and while the price is extremely inflated, you do often get a lot of functionality for that money. Osirix is no substitute for that. Osirix works fine as a third display terminal or something in the doctor's office, but I wouldn't want any radiologists I know using it as their primary reporting station.

The part about the iPods is interesting too. Having ready and portable access to images is neat, but of course, this is not used as a primary reporting tool. It is useful to take to conferences to share interesting cases, etc, but not for any other great purpose.

Re:I feel comforted

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Not what it seems

[Maset]

*sigh*

RTFA:

'After we figured out that the iPods were a practical way of carrying these images, Apple brought out the photo iPod a few months later. That meant the images could also be viewed on the devices.'