Lately I’ve heard several people voice frustration over the problems importing radiology studies on CDs from outside an institution into a PACS archive.  It’s important to be able to do this for patient care, and the treating physician needs to be able to view the images using existing workstations or web-based solutions, but in order for a study to be verified as correct, it needs an accession number.  This requires creating an order for each study on each CD  prior to importing the images.  Technically, it’s a solvable issue, but logistically, someone has to place the order with the correct study date and description, patient information, etc.  And if the ability to import CDs is distributed throughout an institution, the personnel in a department other than radiology may not understand the importance of ordering the study and obtaining an accession number and then associating the accession number with the imaging study.

So, what are people doing about this?  I see a lot of presentations on this topic but without a clear description of how they solved these impediments to importing and verifying studies from outside CDs.

This is just for fun !!  I had the pleasure of spending Halloween in the Chicago Hyde Park area with friends where we served up 2,800 trick-or-treaters until we ran out of candy.  They really know how to throw a party.  Our host’s pumpkins were the hit of the house with kids forgetting to get candy because they were mesmerized by the pumpkins.  A picture of two of them are at the top of this post.

I happened to be at a FedEx office where the item below was being shipped.  This remarkable sculpture is a skull of medusa with the snakes still attached.  The sculpture is made entirely from Red Bull cans and was being shipped to the Red Bull company by the artist. 

The long-awaited SIIM sponsered Textbook on Practical Imaging Informatics is finally here, ready to ship to you.  To get your copy, go to the SIIM webside, www.siimweb.org and follow the links from Publications ->SIIM Imaging Info Pro Publications and click on it to order the book.  As a member, you will get the best price by going though the SIIM website to Springer.  You’ll find that the book will be your constant reference as you do your job.  Maybe I can get Oprah to make it her “book”

I hope you are eating hot-dogs, shooting fire-works and having fun today.  Let’s all take a moment to remember how thankful we are to be living in the United States and how greatful we are to the men and women who keep us safe and free.  I know our economy is a mess right now, but when I look around at the alternatives to the United States, I’m happy I’m here.  For those of you readers from other countries, this is our celebration of our independence from England.  It’s one of our truly joyful holidays without political, racial, or religious lines dividing us.  Happy 4th of July and have another piece of pie !!

My co-leader (Tony Seibert) and I took pictures during our interactive session on setting policy for storing images from the new 64 slice plus CT units.  Some of the units can generate 15,000 images for a study and these clearly will need careful handling.  So the question is – Do you save them all?  Do you save screen captures of the processed data which is usually more useful than the 15,000 individual images? Do you save both?  If you save the “raw” 15,000 images, how can you show in the future how they were processed and displayed for interpretation and if you only save the processed data, how can you look back and reprocess if desired?  The round tables each given one of three scenarios and asked to develop a policy to storage.  The groups seemed to enjoy the exercise and no two groups came up with the same policy.  I believe there is no right or wrong answer, but your answer has to be in a written policy.

The picture below shows a group of our attendees hashing out their policy on storage.

Submit a creative and provocative question for the SIIM 2008 closing session and if it is selected to be used you may win an Amazon Kindle, an Apple IPOD Touch 16 GB, an IBM Think Pad T40, or a Garmin nuvi 750 Portable GPS System.  You must be present to win.  What a great session this will be - excellent topics, an expert panel, and awesome gadgets.    For more on SIIM 2008, click on the link in the Blogroll on the right side of this page.

We know all you scientific presenters are anxious to get your work published.  Be sure to submit your full paper to JDI prior to the annual meeting.  The link to manuscript central is included on the webroll to the right of this posting for your convenience.  As soon as your papers are accepted and published online first, the abstracts will be published in our blog for everyone’s notice so you will have immediate recognition. 

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Society of Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM), SIIM management, Springer management and the Journal of Digital Imaging (JDI) Editorial Board and Office, I welcome you to the blog for JDI, the official journal of SIIM.  Our goal is to provide a forum for stimulating discussion of all topics relating to our fascinating and ever evolving profession, hopefully stirring up a little controversy and making everyone’s day a little more interesting.  We want to be the place everyone starts their day.

We invite you to register so you can post your comments and make suggestions on topics for the blog.  This blog is edited so we can keep it professional at all times with the Editor-in-Chief of JDI, Janice Honeyman-Buck along with Caroline Wilson and Linda Scott from the Editorial office at SIIM acting as editors.  When you submit a comment, our goal is to approve the comment for publication within 24 hours.