These doctors receive radiologic images at home
These doctors receive radiologic images at home
The future for transmitting medical information?
Physicians in Boston who make repeated trips to the hospital solely to review trauma cases now have the chance to review radiologic images at home. This technology also offers increased efficiencies through sharing medical record information.
The Boston physicians are involved in a pilot project, which is a collaborative effort between virtual private network (VPN) switching company Assured Digital Inc. (ADI) in Little ton, MA; broadband service operator MediaOne in Englewood, CO; and medical-imaging software vendor JABR Technology Corp. in Boston.
The project securely delivers large encrypted radiological image files using JABR’s Synapse system to neurosurgeons’ and radiologists’ homes and offices via a high-speed Internet access service using cable modems provided by MediaOne. ADI enables secure private connectivity for the project over the Internet, says Adrian M. Bisaz, vice president of marketing and communications for ADI.
New England Medical Center in Boston is currently hooked up to the project’s network. "The goal is to have up to five other [facilities] all interconnected," Bisaz adds. "Some of them are in trial phase. Others are closer to commercial utilization."
The VPN network delivers streamlined implementation, ease of use, extensive security, and ability to reduce and enlarge, says William Shucart, MD, professor and chief of neurosurgery at Tufts Medical School in Boston and the New England Medical Center. "We now can access and share confidential medical files from home, which enables us to provide our patients with more immediate diagnostics and better care."
The pressure to connect
As more hospitals merge and form networks each year, health information management staff say they feel increased pressure to share medical information.
"When you try to develop systems that work over networks, it is a problem," says Jonathan Borden, MD, a neurosurgeon affiliated with the New England Medical Center and chief executive officer of JABR Technology Corp. "You may have one patient ID number in one hospital and the same patient ID number in another hospital, and they are different patients."
The new technology enables transmission of medical information between institutions or between clinics and other hospitals, he says. "It’s all open and uses standard protocols. Systems are already in place to use it."
Synapse, which is compatible with Microsoft’s NT 95 and 98 platforms, allows users to take analog radiology images and translate them into the medical network protocol Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine. The protocol has been mapped to the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), allowing doctors to add XML tags for such information as the patient’s name, the radiologist’s name, and the preliminary diagnosis. Physicians also can search on the tags and find images and patient information.
Borden says he sees XML as the way of transmitting medical information in the future. "XML is really the only data structure that will be able to reasonably store medical records in an open fashion, which means anyone can look at them and have access to them."
JABR recently developed a Web-enabled version of Synapse so the client no longer needs software to use the system, just a browser that is XML-enabled, which most browsers are now. "Doctors want to sit down, type something in, and get the information," he says. "[With the browser], you cut down on all the configuration of clients."
Helping merchant marines
JABR also is helping physicians at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA, consult on medical problems involving the crews of merchant marine ships.
"The merchant marine ships may only have a crew of about 20 people, and unlike cruise ships, they don’t have a doctor on board," Borden explains. "Medical issues can be a big problem if you’re out at sea."
JABR first sent the crews involved in the project a digital camera and a laptop computer. Once the pictures are taken, they are sent to the clinic over standard Internet protocols.
"They send [the images] via satellite e-mail and then they go onto the Internet," Borden explains. "The images come to our server, and we post them to a Web page. The doctors at the Lahey Clinic then look at the consultations and respond."
This has been an exciting project, he adds. "When we set up the telemedicine consultation, [the crews] were sending the consultations within an hour of the camera arriving on the ship."
JABR will also soon announce another project with Lahey, in which the company will enable the digital review of dermatologic lesions. By enabling the review, primary care practice can improve care to patients as well as reduce the need for specialty referrals, Borden says.
"This is a win for all sides — the patients because they can have a suspicious mole quickly looked at and triaged, the primary care providers because the need for full specialty consultations is reduced, and the specialists because they can spend [time] on lesions that need to be biopsied rather than those that can be observed."
[Editor’s note: For more information about JABR Technology Corp., contact the organization at (617) 557-5151 or visit JABR’s Web site: http://jabr.ne.mediaone.net.]
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.