Dear Healthcare IT Insider,
When attending the RSNA annual meeting, between the draw of hundreds of scientific sessions and the overwhelming size and sizzle of the technical exhibition halls, it can be easy to overlook the understated Lakeside Learning Center. But for the imaging informatics aficionado, this venue, like its infoRAD predecessor, may provide insight into the innovations and new products of the future.
One such innovation is ViSion, a multimedia structured report software application that was highlighted in a poster presentation. ViSion has the potential to be as influential as the concept of personalized hanging protocols introduced at infoRAD years ago -- and it's the brainchild of a radiologist with an impressive track record for innovation. Find out who it is in this newsletter's Inside Exclusive.
Harnessing the potential of information technology to improve healthcare has been on the minds of researchers at the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI). In a recent review article, they stated that healthcare IT could be used to prevent excessive radiation dose exposure to patients. We've summarized their article but also recommend that you read it in its entirety, accessible, of course, through our story.
The NCI researchers recommended that CT dose reporting be mandatory, but it's complicated. The Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) sponsored a webinar on this subject, attended by senior editor Erik L. Ridley. Read about what he learned.
On the other hand, international editor Eric Barnes reported on an open-source CT exposure data extraction tool described at an RSNA 2011 scientific session. Click here for the details.
Clinical decision-support software also was given a thumbs up by NCI researchers. Perhaps they'd visited Brigham and Women's Hospital -- its experiences are described here.
ECRI Institute issued two publications of interest to the Healthcare IT Digital Community: its annual list of top hospital technologies and a guide to social media. Read about them here and here.
Next week the largest number of healthcare IT professionals in the world will be heading to Las Vegas to attend the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual meeting. AuntMinnie.com will be there; watch for our coverage.
