As with any competition, the value of the Workstation Face-Off at this year's International Symposium on Multidetector-Row CT will reveal itself during the course of the event.
Eight vendors have registered to compete this year. As in past years, symposium codirector Dr. Geoffrey Rubin has provided each contestant with five cases, all of which will be undertaken before a live audience.
The cases are designed to address the more challenging aspects of image evaluation and workflow related to 3D imaging and the interplay between radiologist and technologist, according to Rubin.
The annual workstation face-off has challenged contestants with tasks that anticipate the next generation of capabilities likely to be found on workstation and PACS software. At this year's event, Rubin will ask participants to illustrate how their systems allow a collaborative workflow between the 3D technologist and the radiologist or interpreting physician.
One of the cases takes place in a 3D laboratory with a technologist working up the case. The technologist will make an error in the rendering (under instructions from Rubin). After the technologist transfers a model of the edited 3D volume rendering to the reading room, the radiologist must examine the model, recognize the error, and correct it.
"This is real-time experience in terms of seeing how that all plays out," he said. "The excitement here is that we won't know what will happen until we see it."
