Dear Healthcare IT Insider,
When did you last have a dental checkup and teeth cleaning? No matter how diligent your oral hygiene practices are, tooth decay can occur without your knowledge.
The same is true for vulnerability with respect to your hospital or imaging center's network security system. As with a dental appointment, security experts recommend a routine intrusion-detection checkup every six months.
It's like pulling teeth to obtain details about maintaining network security from security experts, but several were willing to discuss the topic of penetration testing for healthcare facilities. Everyone interviewed in this edition's Insider Exclusive emphasized that "you don't know what you don't know," so take a moment to read this article by clicking here.
Healthcare IT is all about efficiency. With that in mind, we'd like to share our experience with a recently discovered IT product currently in development -- a prototype gesture recognition system interfaced with a PACS that knocked our socks off, based on its ability to reduce operating room time required by a neurosurgeon for complex brain surgery.
It's still in the process of being commercialized by researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, but it has the potential to make navigation through large-volume datasets of CT, MRI, and PET/CT images much more efficient. Read about Gestix -- and see a video that shows how the system works in a real operating room -- by clicking here.
Meanwhile, staff writer Erik L. Ridley reports on a new communication and documentation software tool with the ability to improve communication of critical, time-sensitive radiology reports. The software was developed by Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where researchers say the application has enabled them to quadruple the volume of critical results they can deliver to referring physicians. Could your healthcare organization benefit from similar results? Click here to learn more.
Finally, do you know that teledermatology is moving toward DICOM standardization? Staff writer Wayne Forrest reports in depth on the latest developments from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the American Telemedicine Association.
Continue to check in with your Healthcare IT Digital Community, and please write to me about your innovations at [email protected].
