A unique touchscreen iPhone-teleradiology application that allows physicians to navigate through diagnostic images from home, train, or golf cart was announced in June at the Apple user's meeting by an Ohio biomedical company.
The system from MIMvista of Cleveland is called MIM. It lets radiologists and physicians retrieve digital images wirelessly on their iPhone or iPod touch, then manipulate the images with workstation functionality in the palm of the user's hand.
MIM provides multiplanar reconstruction of data sets from modalities including CT, PET, MRI, and SPECT, as well as multimodality image fusion. Using the multitouch interface, users can change image sets and planes, adjust zoom and fusion blend, and perform window/ leveling. Images can be panned, flipped to any orientation, and presented from any angle in any color contrast by a pinch, double tap, swipe, or one- or-two finger slide.
There's even a measurement tool. The user makes it work by tapping to position the start of a measurement line, dragging the line, then tapping to complete. The line remains on that slide until removed by a small shake of the device. This accelerometer feature is not found on any desktop workstation.
"We know from talking to radiologists and oncologists, it's easy to be caught without access to a workstation," said Mark Cain, MIMvista CTO. "The iPhone application enables users to access images when they are not near a workstation."
Before the iPhone, developing a mobile teleradiology solution like this would have been virtually impossible, Cain said.
"We've taken a complex desktop application, removed it from the realm of black art, and placed it in the hands of physicians and patients—and we've only just scratched the surface," he said.
