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Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor | July 22, 2010
If it's not for diagnosing, what is it for?
To find out, Merge put DOTmed News in contact with a user of its eFilm Mobile.
"I find it really useful because you can kind of get a quick picture of what's going on," said Dr. Roman Klufas, a practicing radiologist. He is also president and medical director of Open MRI of New England and Advanced Radiology, Inc and staff neuroradiologist and instructor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Dr. Klufas said he typically uses the eFilm Mobile to gauge his workload - to see how many cases he has outstanding on the workstation - and he thinks in the future it can be used to share images with referring physicians. For instance, if a patient went to him under suspicion of having severe pneumonia, he can send scans of the lungs to the doctor, so the images can then be shared with the patient to break the good (or bad) news.
Canadian radiologists can
make clinical diagnoses
off a smartphone
app.
While Dr. Klufas didn't address this, others believe this could conceivably become a marketing strategy, something radiologists use to distinguish themselves from their rivals for referring physicians - instead of having to wait to get a grainy fax to show your anxious patient, come to us, and we'll give you instant clear, full-color pictures on your iPhone to ease worried minds.
Gray areas
Another workflow use Dr. Klufas pointed out is advising the technologist operating the machine based on the images he is seeing.
Tim Kulbago, chief technology officer at Merge, described the scenario thusly: a radiologist is driving home at the end of the day. The sonographer performing the ultrasound - and the quality of the image is based on the technologists' skill, Kulbago said - sends an image of the scan to the radiologist's smartphone, asking if the image is clear enough for the patient to go home, or if another scan is needed.
"[The radiologist is] not reading the study, but simply making the decision as to whether the patient can go home or not, and having some level of confidence that you won't have to bring the patient back," Kulbago said.
Kulbago thinks this is important because it improves workflow; it meets a real need and is not mere mobile gimcrackery.
