Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center

Cutting-edge Medical Imaging

Dr. Edward Zaragoza in his office views images in OsiriX with two Apple Cinema Displays.

Remote Consultation Made Easy

Another major challenge for physicians is remote consultation. Zaragoza calls this a “primetime example of where OsiriX can be useful.” With a simple plug-in, OsiriX becomes fully integrated with iChat AV in Mac OS X. Physicians can switch from a live, face-to-face video conference to showing medical images inside the iChat window itself, eliminating the hurdle of long-distance consulting. This seamless integration of voice and live display and the markup of 3D images exceeds the capabilities of even most professional teleradiology applications.

Indeed, iChat AV has come in handy at UCLA. “We live in a distributed workflow environment,” explains Zaragoza. “I have colleagues in Westwood, California, who read nuclear medicine PET/CT images. To participate in the daily PET rounds to review studies with UCLA faculty would require them to drive 30 to 45 minutes each way. OsiriX is one of the best applications for doing PET/CT fusion, especially when it comes to integrating the multi-planar reformations and looking at the CT information side by side with fused CT/PET information. It’s truly impressive to be able to do that within iChat AV across the Internet. Its real-time chatting eliminates the need for commuting up and down the Wilshire corridor.” You don’t have to live in Los Angeles to appreciate that elegant solution.

“OsiriX is one of the best applications for doing PET/CT fusion, especially when it comes to integrating the multi-planar reformations and looking at the CT information side by side with fused CT/PET information. It’s truly impressive to be able to do that within iChat AV across the Internet.”

Seamless Integration with Mac OS X and OsiriX

OsiriX can also help radiologists streamline their workflow and improve productivity, thanks to its integration with several other Mac OS X features, Apple software applications, and .Mac utilities. “One of the best industrial-strength components of Mac OS X is the query engine, Spotlight,” Zaragoza observes. “I can use this search engine to directly query the General Electric Centricity PACS to pull studies to my office computer.” OsiriX is also integrated with iPhoto, a software application that’s part of the iLife by Apple for managing, editing, and sharing digital photos. “iPhoto makes saving key images to a permanent library a breeze,” says Zaragoza. “OsiriX can also send and receive images from iDisk with a click of a button, which makes data transfers between the office and home nearly effortless.” iDisk is a virtual, secure storage utility that’s a feature of .Mac, a set of Internet-based tools that’s fully integrated with the suite of iLife applications and Mac OS X.

Many Images. One iPod

iPod is another important tool that Zaragoza employs. He often uses his two iPods to show collaborators data from his research projects or to illustrate an example to his medical students. “Having that amount of content available in my hip pocket is really a neat thing,” he says.

iPod’s integration with the iLife applications such as iTunes and iPhoto makes it possible for Zaragoza to easily maintain a portable collection of important medical images and video. Zaragoza relies on iPhoto extensively for his teaching and publication needs. Using its powerful database features, he can tag and annotate medical images into groups of albums and label them with keywords or descriptors.

Effortless Searching and Webpage Creation

He can find sample images easily and quickly using Spotlight. “Spotlight is great,” says Zaragosa. “When you need it, it knows where everything is — there’s no waiting for a long disk search. One of the challenges that creative individuals face — in medicine, engineering, or whatever field of expertise — is managing information. Data must be accessible to be useful. If the information is stuck on a hard disk in a folder somewhere and you can’t remember it’s there or easily get to it, it’s not doing anybody any good.”

Zaragoza also uses iPhoto and iWeb, the application in iLife for creating websites, together. “iWeb gives me the ability to publish a webpage effortlessly without using a high-end application to do it,” he says. “It provides basic tools and creates the style sheet for me, so that I can place images on the page easily without knowing any web code.” Why would a busy radiologist take time to make webpages? “If it’s easy and interactive, then building a teaching page is not a chore; instead, it’s fun to do.”

The Future of Medical Imaging

What role might the Mac play in the future of medical imaging? Zaragoza has a vision that goes well beyond what the commercial PACS can do today. “I am very interested in the concept of using OsiriX in the operating room,” he says. “The teleconferencing functionality of Mac OS X could allow a radiologist to discuss imaging findings with a surgeon as the surgery is being performed. In the Apple environment, a digital film librarian could open and hang the exam for the surgeon using Apple Remote Desktop. Layer iChat AV on top of that and the surgeon could video conference with other surgeons who might be operating in another room or in a separate hospital.”

Zaragoza summarizes: “Many applications allow us to be creative and communicate with images. But in terms of functionality, nothing approaches what Apple allows us to do in photocasting, webcasting, cataloging, and accessing information. It’s a little bit of a computer that’s about me and my content, but it’s also a computer that’s about us and sharing content. That’s what makes it powerful — the ability to have good stuff and to show it off effectively.”

< Previous Page 1 2