SCAR's tone and scope reflect PACS changes

By: Douglas Page

The seeds of PACS have been scattered widely in radiology, and the sprouting popularity of the Symposium for Computer Applications in Radiology is one indication of how deeply the roots have reached. SCAR's 19th annual meeting in Cleveland outgrew its traditional hotel venue. Registration at the May conference increased to about 2000, roughly a 17% spurt, and the gathering required a convention center.

More conference space meant room for more vendors. The floor of the Cleveland Convention Center was temporary home to 96 exhibitors, nearly twice as many as there were four years ago at the SCAR meeting at the Houston Westin Galleria Hotel, which housed 51 vendor booths.

More registrations meant more sessions. This year, 120 speaker sessions were scheduled over the four days of the meeting, compared with 86 sessions four years ago, a 28% increase. A shift in the focus of speaker topics reflects the turn of the industry away from PACS implementation and early adopter experiences to more operational matters:

• HIPAA angst (13 sessions);
• improving workflow and productivity (10);
• emerging modalities such as CR and DR (10);
• enterprise image distribution (10);
• structured reporting/speech recognition (eight); and
• quality assurance/control (six).

SCAR University, in its third year, offered a full curriculum of 48 courses in 12 sections for beginner, intermediate, advanced, and graduate level students. The pitches seem to be improving, although the redundant nature of some of the sessions from one year to another year makes it difficult to find the pearls.

HONORING SAM DWYER

I nearly missed the induction of Samuel Dwyer, Ph.D., as a SCAR fellow at the noon lunch membership symposium. So did Dwyer. The meeting, originally scheduled in one of the center's smallest conference rooms was moved to one of the largest after the program was printed. There's always that 0.0001% who don't get the word.

I found Dwyer, the venerable University of Virginia radiology professor, at 11:40 a.m., sitting by himself reading a newspaper in the room erroneously listed in the program. Figuring I must be in the right place, I took a seat nearby and for 10 minutes or so he and I enjoyed a nice chat about Cleveland restaurants, the Jefferson phantasm at the University of Virginia, and how PACS got its name. Dwyer, who is known as the father of PACS, neglected to mention that he was about to be named SCAR fellow at the meeting we didn't know we were missing.

The absence of box lunches or anyone to eat them, however, soon tipped us off to the fact that we were in the wrong place, and we set out to find the meeting. No sooner had we found it and picked up our sandwiches, the lights dimmed and a photo taken some years ago at a PACS meeting in Tokyo appeared on the overhead. A garrulous Sam Dwyer was seen, apparently attempting to persuade a rather reticent geisha of the productivity benefits possible with PACS.

Dwyer is good at persuasion. He once convinced an entire industry that its future was digital. By naming Dwyer a SCAR fellow, the Society's ninth such honor, that same industry was recognizing his unique contribution to making PACS a reality in medicine.

WINDOW CT OR AISLE?

Many radiologists departing the SCAR meeting met a familiar device in front of the ticket counters at Cleveland's Hopkins International Airport. New scanners have begun to appear in airport lobbies, part of the government's attempt to tighten security in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Departing passengers checking bags are now required to feed them through an industrial CT scanner.

When will some enterprising imaging group strike a deal with the airlines and/or airport operations to offer full-body CT scans there in the airport lobby in conjunction with baggage inspection? Why not? Imaging boutiques are already popping up in shopping malls.

Travelers could have the scanner peer inside their body for polyps at the same time it examines their baggage for bombs.

MR. PAGE is a freelance writer in Redondo Beach, CA.