(Press Release) Intelerad’s mobile-friendly and brandable web solution features fast delivery of radiology results with zero download and no training required

(Press Release) Siemens Healthcare will showcase its portfolio of imaging information technology (IT) and workflow management solutions at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) 2011 Annual Meeting from June 2-5, 2011, (booth 825) in the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, Washington, D.C.

(Press Release) TeraRecon, Inc. (www.terarecon.com), a leader in advanced visualization and decision support, today highlighted Integration and Interconnectivity of the iNtuitionTM enterprise advanced visualization solution to imaging and informatics professionals assembled for the Annual Meeting of the Society of Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM),

(Press Release) The major enhancements of this release include the introduction of the 64-bit Ubuntu operating system, performance and speed enrichments, seamless interoperability with Roentgen Works advanced workflow tools such as ER Discordance, Urgent Findings and On Holds, and an improvement in the comparison tools for hanging protocols.

(Press Release) Sonovision 2.0 which is cost effective and innovative ultrasound imaging and workstation software for studies acquisition, study management and reporting of Ultrasound and similar medical imaging devices.

In truth, the choices may not be all that stark, but there remains a debate over who controls the PACS -- radiology or IT -- and it was played out Saturday between two able advocates.

NEC Display Solutions of America introduced a 30-inch full-color, wide-screen display in the Quest International booth. The 4-megapixel MultiSync MD304M, certified for radiology and emergency room environments, is slated to begin shipping in July.

Computer-aided detection will probably help radiologists detect small cancers earlier but will not increase the cancer detection rate, according to a CAD expert.

The process to link two data sets acquired from different modalities or with the same modality at different times must now be done manually on the Carestream PACS. By early next year, these PACS users will be able to skip this time-consuming step using an automatic registration feature previewed at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine meeting.

Michael Toland was seven months into his first job as a PACS administrator, working for a 250-bed community hospital with a 70,000 per year exam volume, when the PACS crashed.

Radiology reporting on the GE Healthcare Centricity RIS just got smarter with an intelligent algorithm that senses when dictated cases don’t sound right. This “thought checker,” scheduled to begin routine shipment by the end of this year as an upgrade to the Centricity RIS-IC Reporting module, uses the context of reports to identify possible errors. The program, for example, might question whether the radiologist meant “left occipital lobe” rather than “right” by highlighting the directional term in blue. Or it might insert a red bar at a point where certain information needs to be added.

Brit Systems reached out to imaging centers, clinics, and offices at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine meeting with PACS bundles. The company also unveiled a package to support outsourced radiology reading services.

Siemens Healthcare in its booth highlighted syngo TrueD, a multimodality application for oncology. TrueD registers data sets obtained using PET/CT, SPECT/CT, CT, and MR, allowing exams of patients scanned at different times -- before and after therapy, for instance -- to be compared. Differences found in these comparisons may inform decisions about whether to continue or modify treatment. In addition to registration and visualization, TrueD performs quantitative measures that can document changes at up to three time points. Rigid and nonrigid methods for structure comparisons include navigational tools that support visual alignment and matching landmarks.

Philips Healthcare focused attention in its booth on the company’s IT “ecosystem” of about a dozen suppliers of software products that work with its iSite PACs. Philips presented an à la carte approach to the selection of various complementary products, exemplified by Amirsys’ STATdx Diagnostic Decision Support System, which provides reference tools useful in the diagnostic process.

A new storage appliance, iMed-Stor, debuted at the Candelis booth. The DICOM-compliant archive appliance was engineered to securely and cost-effectively manage digital medical images, ideally from a single digital modality. It can be configured to work seamlessly alongside any PACS, according to the company, and can be outfitted with an optional web-based viewer, enabling radiologists to read images from any location offering a secure Internet connection.

Foresight Imaging is previewing at the SIIM conference version 2.2 of its TIMS DICOM software, which helps facilities still using non-DICOM medical modalities to convert to DICOM.

Image analysis and reporting functionality are on display at Carestream’s SIIM booth, where the company is showcasing its latest generation of computed radiography systems, the Kodak DIRECTVIEW Classic and Elite CR systems.

PACS/IT developer RamSoft debuted its PowerServer RIS/PACS at the SIIM conference, framing the new product as a true integration between RIS and PACS, free of HL7 interfacing. The company designed the web-based PowerServer RIS/PACS as the means for small facilities to increase efficiency, while allowing an upgrade path from existing PowerServer PACS installations.

As the SIIM conference opened, Nuance unveiled a new version of its speech recognition product PowerScribe, incorporating enhancements and integration designed to improve radiology workflow. Version 5.0 offers a concentrated focus on accurate, comprehensive, and readily available clinical documentation, according to the company.

It wasn’t intended as a formal roundtable, but a question from the radiology news media -- what are the biggest challenges facing the field -- led some SIIM veterans, participants on a panel assembled by the association, into discussion Thursday of a laundry list of issues facing radiology informatics. Their comments also produced some insights into hot topics to watch in the future.