While some in the medical community are slow to adopt to change, including viewing medical images from anything other than the archaic film-based screening rooms, patients of doctors who have embraced recent technological advancements are benefitting greatly.
When it comes to image transmission, nothing is more in the forefront that Google Glass, an image
transmission technology that fits on the rim of your eyeglasses. Trailblazers in the medical community have already enlisted the technology in their practices and have found it increasingly helpful.
A trauma surgeon can (once FDA approval is granted) use Google Glass in surgery. For instance, while wearing the technology, the surgeon can refer to various readouts that are sent to his eyepiece, which means he does have to crane his neck – taking his eyes off the patient – to look at the various dashboards on the equipment used in the operating room. The image transmission technology allows for the various X-rays that doctors find useful during surgery to be displayed on the eyepiece as well.
Furthermore, the camera on Google Glass can be used as a teaching tool, giving medical students a first-person experience as they see what the doctor sees.
Increasingly, doctors are connecting to technologies that put them in closer communication with radiologists and their medical images. The days of burning CDs and popping them into a CD-ROM drive on a desktop computer aren’t quite behind us yet, even though there is better technology available; some doctors still prefer that old means of image transmission. However, PACS systems are advancing now to where they can effectively and efficiently transfer medical images to doctors on their smartphones and tablet computers.
Using these more advanced methods, doctors are better able to see the medical images they need to treat their patients. One of the biggest benefits of these technologies is that the images are just a mouse click away, which means doctors see what they need to see extremely quickly, which in some cases could be the difference between life and death.
The FDA has yet to approve the widespread use of Google Glass in the medical industry, but other methods are already approved and in full use today. For instance, instead of using CDs to view images, more doctors are using a solution called Virtual CD, which is a construct of a company called OffSite Image Management, Inc. This completely replaces your CD burning process through the use of a custom URL that is secure and allows for the medical images to shoot directly through the cloud and into the hands of the medical professional.
Doctors using Virtual CD have the option of either downloading the images to their PACS or simply viewing them on their device. They can also print the images if so needed. The process is so simple and no extra hardware is needed. One of the biggest pluses for the medical community is that the technology can be downloaded for free and they only have to pay for what they use. Contact OffSite today and see how our solutions match up to your needs.