Siemens Medical Solutions put its syngo Suite in the spotlight at SIIM 2007 as the means to an advanced level of interoperability and flexibility for imaging centers. The product, a hybrid IT that integrates RIS, PACS, postprocessing, and patient data handling, brings image management and practice management together in an easy-to-use package.

Mercury Computer introduced enhanced 3D tools and application workflow for CT angiography at the SIIM meeting. The enhancements, part of Visage CS Thin Client/Server 2.2, address 3D and 4D image interpretation, postprocessing, and distribution tasks possible within the PACS workflow anywhere in the hospital enterprise. Bone removal for CT runoff studies automatically subtracts leg bone, pelvic bone, and spine to illuminate vascular structures. A new integrated suite of analytical tools defines and traces vessels and performs curved planar reformatting or a straightened lumen view. A Cardiac CT Analysis Package features 4D Cardiac CT data support, including coronary vessel analysis and left ventricular function analysis.

Because PACS administrators come from various backgrounds and a site may have multiple systems from various vendors, fixing problems in a timely fashion can be challenging. To address this concern, PACS administrators at the University of Maryland Medical System have designed a wiki to build a collaborative decision support and knowledge repository for supporting a PACS.

Last year, the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine attracted 24 essays from residents and other trainees vying to win travel reimbursement to the meeting. This year, the society received no essays, according to Dr. Barton F. Branstetter IV, chair of the SIIM education committee, who moderated a morning resident roundtable session.

Reprising the old joke about how many people it takes to change a lightbulb, radiologists were asked Friday how many workstations it takes to solve a given clinical question. Their answer: way too many.

Tools for managing an outsourced radiology service premiered at the Neurostar booth during the SIIM meeting. New additions to the company's Virtual Radiology Network include enhanced schedule-based routing of studies and custom management reporting tools supporting both real-time dashboard style and retrospective information. Digital recording, web-based transcription, custom structured report templates, and voice recognition have also been added, along with automated billing and cost-analysis reporting.

Native 3D and postprocessing capabilities are taking center stage at the Carestream Health booth during the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine conference June 7 to 10. Volumetric capability and other advanced functions are embedded into the latest version of the company’s Carestream PACS, which will begin shipping the end of this month. Also built into the enhanced system are image fusion, orthopedic surgical templating, and cardiac functions.

Buyers of a new computed radiography reader from Fujifilm Medical Systems USA will have the option to double capacity, if needed, with a field upgrade. The new XG2000 comes with two cassette slots but can be reconfigured to four with relatively simple hardware and software adjustments.

Radiologists' eyes can suffer physical injury from a reading environment that is not optimized for their benefit. Attention has focused on ergonomic posture and ambient light, but researchers are beginning to understand that many other factors can put a strain on visual acuity.

An ultrathin viewing station debuted Thursday at the Maxant booth during the 2007 Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine meeting in Providence. The new addition to the MediPort product line can be configured with single or multiple displays at various color or gray-scale resolutions.

A 10-year study of imaging volume demands on a PACS archive at the Medical University of South Carolina shows how significant a factor multislice CT has become in overall image data storage.

Software to aid in the evaluation of hepatic lesions debuted June 7 at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine meeting in Providence. The IQQA(R)-Liver Enterprise, developed by EDDA Technology, enables 4D analyses running on existing PACS workstations. The software handles the large volume of data obtained from contrast-enhanced multislice images of the liver. It automatically performs anatomic phase registration to visualize and cross-reference lesion locations and characteristics across different phases of enhancement. Segmentation and measurement tools address lesions, vascular structures, and lobes of the liver.

Hospitals with fewer than 200 beds increasingly are taking the plunge into CR and DR, while upgrading obsolete CTs with multislice scanners. Their rising load of digital data requires a PACS, but costs have been a problem. On June 7, at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine meeting, PACS/IT vendor Emageon and personal computer maker Dell proposed a solution: a simplified PACS based on Emageon’s advanced PACS and prepackaged to run on Dell computers.

The elderly patient was a major donor to the hospital. Intraoperative ultrasound revealed an unexpected liver lesion. Color Doppler showed vascularity. If the lesion was a cancerous tumor, the entire liver would need to be removed, the surgeon told radiologist Dr. Stephen Horii. Only histology would reveal actual pathology.

Attendees of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine conference June 7 to 10 in Providence are getting a taste of Dynamic Imaging’s new IntegradWeb RIS/PACS. Available for general release, the software is optimized for ambulatory imaging centers and radiology group practices. A beta version of the RIS/PACS has been running at Liberty Pacific Medical Imaging facilities in California and Ohio.

Soon, having the latest informatics technology, such as electronic health records, will no longer differentiate one hospital from another. What will help distinguish facilities is how that technology is used, how well the data is leveraged to improve processes and patient care, according to John P. Glaser, Ph.D., vice president and chief information officer of Partners Healthcare Systems.

Agfa HealthCare unveiled today the latest version of its Impax PACS as a work-in-progress at the 2007 Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine meeting in Providence. Version 6.3 features customizable workflows designed for multisite environments and tools that allow for data synchronization, access to reports from across the enterprise, and management of multiple distinct patient ID domains.

PowerServer PACS version 4.3, an enterprise-grade IT, is on the market. The enhanced product is appearing at RamSoft’s booth June 7 to 10 at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine meeting. Version 4.3 now includes study bookmarking, study linking, and a smart compare mode.

More is better and all but inevitable in medical imaging. In CT, more means slices. In MR, it’s channels for receiving radiofrequency signals. These currently number 32 on the most advanced commercially available systems. But a replacement for that benchmark is in the works.

Before the dawn of political correctness, there was a time when girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice, and boys were made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails. Now, functional MRI is confirming that boys and girls really don't think alike. Brain structures and functions that facilitate intelligence in girls are different for boys.