Dear Healthcare Informatics Insider,
While cloud-based image repositories offer numerous benefits, this storage model can come with communication latency issues in comparison with onsite archives.
A team from the University of Aveiro in Portugal, however, has developed a pattern recognition system based on artificial neural networks that can learn and adapt to user patterns to improve image prefetching. In testing, their approach yielded significant improvement in image retrieval times. Click here to learn more.
Another group from the University of Aveiro recently shared their Web-based system for automatically extracting, processing, and analyzing radiation dose data from imaging studies across institutions. Their software provides cumulative dose reports, including simulation of dose expected in upcoming imaging studies. Click here for more details.
In other articles this month in our Healthcare Informatics Community, Nicola Goatman, Stephen Holloway, and Sarah Jones of market research and consultancy firm IHS Technology take an in-depth look at European trends affecting the development of medical imaging and IT offerings. Is a truly digital and integrated European health system at hand? Click here to find out.
Patient portals confer many benefits, including providing patients with control over their image data. Hospitals also benefit by optimizing second-opinion services and reducing unnecessary testing by embedding image sharing functionality into the program. However, patients may need some convincing to use these portals, so it's important to take steps such as addressing their security concerns, according to a column by DICOM Grid CEO Morris Panner. Click here for his other tips to increase adoption of patient portals.
The European Society of Radiology recently concluded that a European imaging biobank would give a big lift to imaging research. Click here for all of the details.
If you have any tips or suggestions for topics you'd like to see covered in the Healthcare Informatics Community, please feel free to drop me a line.
