CHICAGO - First-time exhibitor iMammogram.com of Westlake Village, CA, is showcasing its Web-based computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) mammography service, CloserLook, at the RSNA show. The service is based on FDA-approved CAD technology, the ImageChecker M1000 mammography CAD workstation from Los Altos, CA-based R2 Technology.
The company may be one of the first radiology vendors to take a page from the pharmaceutical industry playbook, directly marketing their product to consumers of the service. iMammogram.com offers CloserLook, via its Web site, to patients who have had mammograms in the past six months. The company has also attracted high-visibility celebrity endorsement from entertainers Whoopi Goldberg and Cindy Margolis.
The patient downloads and fills out a medical release form that is returned to iMammogram. The company then contacts the mammography facility, obtains the patient’s films, digitizes and stores a diagnostic copy of the film, performs the analysis, and sends the results back to the patient and the facility. The service is priced at $75 U.S. and is not currently reimbursed by insurance carriers or Medicare.
The ImageChecker software performs approximately 4 billion calculations on each mammogram and produces an analysis of the mammogram marked with regions of interest for radiologist review,” said chief technology office Fernando Picasso. “In addition to the analysis, we scan the patient’s film at 8K resolution and store a 12-bit image in an offsite, redundantly mirrored archive.”
According to founder and chairman of the board Dr. Larry Chespak, the company has received a great deal of attention from RSNA attendees. “A lot of imaging centers can’t justify the price point of the ImageChecker software, but have heard about CloserLook from their patients. So they’ve been dropping by to find out how they can obtain the service.”
This past August, the company partnered with Stockton, CA-based Delta Radiology Group and St. Joseph’s Women’s Imaging Center to offer its services through the mammography centers. President and CEO Danna Campbell noted that the technologists in the centers are major promoters of CloserLook. “Breast cancer detection is the number one issue in women’s health today. The technicians, who are all women in mammography centers, recognize the value of the service and suggest it to the patients.”
A list of participating mammography centers is available at the company’s Web site. Future plans for the company are to expand its service availability to more imaging centers in the U.S. as well as reaching out to the global market. “We’re getting a lot of requests for CloserLook from international attendees at the RSNA,” said Chespak.
By Jonathan S. Batchelor
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
November 28, 2000
The company may be one of the first radiology vendors to take a page from the pharmaceutical industry playbook, directly marketing their product to consumers of the service. iMammogram.com offers CloserLook, via its Web site, to patients who have had mammograms in the past six months. The company has also attracted high-visibility celebrity endorsement from entertainers Whoopi Goldberg and Cindy Margolis.
The patient downloads and fills out a medical release form that is returned to iMammogram. The company then contacts the mammography facility, obtains the patient’s films, digitizes and stores a diagnostic copy of the film, performs the analysis, and sends the results back to the patient and the facility. The service is priced at $75 U.S. and is not currently reimbursed by insurance carriers or Medicare.
The ImageChecker software performs approximately 4 billion calculations on each mammogram and produces an analysis of the mammogram marked with regions of interest for radiologist review,” said chief technology office Fernando Picasso. “In addition to the analysis, we scan the patient’s film at 8K resolution and store a 12-bit image in an offsite, redundantly mirrored archive.”
According to founder and chairman of the board Dr. Larry Chespak, the company has received a great deal of attention from RSNA attendees. “A lot of imaging centers can’t justify the price point of the ImageChecker software, but have heard about CloserLook from their patients. So they’ve been dropping by to find out how they can obtain the service.”
This past August, the company partnered with Stockton, CA-based Delta Radiology Group and St. Joseph’s Women’s Imaging Center to offer its services through the mammography centers. President and CEO Danna Campbell noted that the technologists in the centers are major promoters of CloserLook. “Breast cancer detection is the number one issue in women’s health today. The technicians, who are all women in mammography centers, recognize the value of the service and suggest it to the patients.”
A list of participating mammography centers is available at the company’s Web site. Future plans for the company are to expand its service availability to more imaging centers in the U.S. as well as reaching out to the global market. “We’re getting a lot of requests for CloserLook from international attendees at the RSNA,” said Chespak.
By Jonathan S. Batchelor
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
November 28, 2000
Copyright © 2000 AuntMinnie.com
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