iPhone Used to Access Diagnostic Images

Physicians can simply click on a web link sent via e-mail by one of their colleagues, enter their password, and for example, instantly view movies of a patient's beating heart halfway around the world. They can even put their colleagues on speakerphone and carry on a medical consultation while simultaneously browsing through the imaging results.

The technology was developed by Heart Imaging Technologies (HeartIT; Durham, NC, USA). Viewing medical images conventionally requires very expensive dedicated workstations, which in turn are connected to proprietary picture archiving communications and storage (PACS) systems costing a lot more. To view medical images, physicians must literally drive or walk to one of these workstations. Recent developments in worldwide web browser technologies and the websites that utilize their rich features, collectively referred to as Web 2.0, are challenging these costly and cumbersome proprietary approaches.

Medical images displayed in a web browser have traditionally been of lower quality and therefore had limited diagnostic utility. This technology is the first to provide physicians with the ability to drill-down and view medical images, including movies, on a hand-held device.

"Patient privacy is obviously a critically-important issue on the internet,” said Brent Reed, HeartIT's director of software Development. "Fortunately, medical privacy concerns can be addressed using the same encryption technologies employed by online banking and credit card transactions.”

HeartIT provides web-based medical image management services and computing systems to regional health care systems, large hospitals, and private clinics as well as drug and device companies sponsoring multi-center clinical trials. Worldwide, HeartIT's systems currently provide secure web browser access to over 50 million medical images.


Related Links:
Heart Imaging Technologies
Apple iPhone