Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

iPods Used for Medical Images

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Oct 27, 2005 07:07 AM
from the take-out-the-machine-that-goes-ping dept.
Businesses Handhelds Apple Hardware
spagiola writes "There's a nice little story on CNN about a doctor in Geneva who has developed ways to use iPods to view medical images. His software, called Osirix (OSS, BTW) enables medical professionals to view medical images on their iPods, saving them and the hospitals they work for thousands of dollars in expensive equipment."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

iPods Used for Medical Images 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Evolving (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Oculus Habent (562837) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <tnebah.suluco>> on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:10AM (#13888009) Journal
    It looks like it started out as a simple, "portable hard drive" system... hardly different from the stories about storing BLAST data or Lord of the Rings clips on an iPod. The addition of the iPod's photo-display capabilities and - more significantly, I think - the iChat sharing makes this sound like a setup. I wonder when they will incorporate support for the iPod's video capabilities...
    • Obligatory: What do if I have Linux or Windows?
      • Is gaim compatible with iChat?

        Honestly for a Doctors office, a mac mini and other needed hardware are probably worth the investment if they need to share this data. I am sure it would be cheaper than dedicated hardware. Probably by an order of magnitude ($1,000 vs $10,000 to $50,000)

        • Yes. (Score:3, Informative)

          by SeaFox (739806)
          IIRC, iChat uses libgiam for the AOL OSCAR compatability. And among the recent Google Summer of Code projects was adding support to Giam for the iChat ad-hoc instant messenger networks set up using Apple's Bonjour.
        • Imagine a doctor sharing video of a cardio CT with a cardiologist 1000 miles away using less than $2500 in hardware and a DSL connection.

          This bring so many possibilties to the medical field. A specialist in Massachusetts consults with the primary care physician in Maine and a colleague in Florida, all viewing the same CT footage... A patient able to carry MRI images to a specialist.

          With a quick look at the OsiriX Documentation [wikibooks.org] it looks like it has an Export to QuickTime option, which should make it easy to
          • looks like it has an Export to QuickTime option

            Great. I can't wait for my specialist to have to click past the "Why upgrade to Pro?" nag screen when he's waiting to do some life-saving surgery.
    • This story should be followed up by the one about the chap who discovered that a new BMW could be used to move important medical files from one location to another. After making this remarkable discovery, the entire department quickly put in purchase orders for "medical information transit devices".

      The story is sort of in the "duh" catagory...chap discovers that iPod can be used to store data, justifies purchase. (There was a /. story the IT adminstrator purchased iPod as "boot" devices.)

      As medical ima
      • Read the article. The doctor had an iPod, and started using it to move large files around. That in itself isn't news. It's the additional details.

        They can take a patient's data with them and study it at the office, at home, at a colleague's office. This doesn't require an iPod.

        They added an image export function to put pictures in iPod-viewable format once the iPod Photo came out. That's pretty minor, but you can use it for reference, or output it to a TV for viewing. The resolution is still lower than original quality, but I can't speak to those details.

        Then they used iChat AV for full-motion video streaming to other doctors. Again, the quality is lower, but the ability to consult with other doctors in real-time with the data can be invaluable. They also used .Mac to conveniently post images - stripped of identifiers for anonymity - to protected web space for additional consultation and reference purposes.

        The real imaging work can't be done on the portable because it is very demanding... it's a 3d video of sorts. A tablet might be able to do the work, but the real point isn't using the images on-the-go, it's taking the images with you or sharing them.

        The costs are negligible because the equipment is there... they have the Mac to use Osirix. That means they have the iChat software. They were using their own iPods. Sure, some medical facilities might end up buying a few iPods for this use... is that so terrible? I think the additional costs of training and deployment for Windows Tablet PCs and a different DICOM viewer far outweigh the costs of iPods... if they even have to buy them. Remember, for most of the uses - excepting the iPod-viewable photos and videos - any portable drive would do.

  • there's a practical use for an iPod... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    it took some time to find it, didn't it?
  • So they managed to change their program to store files on the ipod, as well as pictures that the ipod could view? Which would have been really hard to do.

    Somebody is in love with the Ipod.
    • So they managed to change their program to store files on the ipod, as well as pictures that the ipod could view? Which would have been really hard to do.

      Ah, but you missed the important part:

      saving them and the hospitals they work for thousands of dollars in expensive equipment

      See, now our medical expenses will be lower now!

      Somebody is in love with the Ipod.

      Your obviously new here.

  • Follow up story... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:11AM (#13888015)
    Several patients diagnosed with "just a scratch".

  • Not what it seems (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:13AM (#13888022)
    Not exactly what TFA says, they don't 'use' the iPod to 'view', they store the images on the iPod in file mode, so the article could re-written to say:

    Some people have created sofware which allows images to be stored on an external hard drive.

    In other words....

    Nothing to see here, this is not the video/photo ipod in action.

    • Re:Not what it seems (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Seehund (86897) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:34AM (#13888107) Homepage Journal
      Exactly. Yet another fellow physician stores DICOM files on removable media. This time the media brand is "iPod", and thus it gets on the frontpage of Slashduh.

      Idiocy.

      And Osirix is a Free equivalent to the Osiris DICOM handler. It has nothing to do with "enabling medical professionals to view medical images on their iPods". Regardless of what imaging and analysis software you use (and you use it on a PC/workstation!), it doesn't give a crap about the trademark of your storage media!
        • it's removable media with a preview.

          So what? [google.com]

          The iPod part of the story was irrelevant, most of the rest of the story was untrue and/or misunderstood, and it wasn't interesting or news. This is what happens when when Slashdot jumps on anything with "iPod" in it no matter how asinine and pointless, combined with this alleged nerds' site's embarrassing trust in eg. CNN or Yahoo for news about science* or "doctors".

          * = At least when it's about biology and medicine. It's alright to scoff at the mainstream media

    • Re:Not what it seems (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Maset (190867) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:51AM (#13888185)
      *sigh*

      RTFA:

      'After we figured out that the iPods were a practical way of carrying these images, Apple brought out the photo iPod a few months later. That meant the images could also be viewed on the devices.'

  • Medical information security (Score:5, Insightful)

    by broggyr (924379) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:14AM (#13888032)
    Wouldn't they have to be 'secured' to compy with HIPAA regulations in any way? iPods are easily pocketed, and I would think an iPod with Medical Imaging files on it would be at risk...
    • You can set the iPod to require a 4-digit access code. I don't know at what level it locks things out or how secure it really is, but at least there is a little protection.

        • Re:Medical information security (Score:4, Informative)

          by shotfeel (235240) on Thursday October 27 2005, @10:26AM (#13889184)
          Take a look at iPod nano: How to use the Screen Lock [apple.com] . It has information for the Nano, and I'm assuming the video iPod is similar.

          Just FYI to the point about how secure it is :

          Screen Lock only locks users out of the user interface. It does not encrypt data on your iPod. For example, if you use Screen Lock and then connect your iPod nano to a computer, you'll be able to manage music on your iPod with iTunes and access all data on it in disk mode (contacts, notes, and any other files you have stored on the iPod).

  • I'm just left wondering (Score:5, Insightful)

    by J. T. MacLeod (111094) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:16AM (#13888040)
    How this is more cost-effective--or more effective, period--than low-cost color PDAs with CF microdrives. Surely the higher resolution, larger screen, and more flexible OS would be better?

    It's true that high-capacity microdrives are more expensive, but that's still a lot of photos at that resolution.

    However it compares, it awfully neat, though, and a good example of how technology can be a real life-improvement above pure entertainment.

  • Article (Score:4, Informative)

    by kevin_conaway (585204) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:17AM (#13888041) Homepage
    Before anyone gets into a tiff about viewing the images on a small iPod screen, I suggest you read the article. The physicians are merely STORING the images on the iPod and then hooking the iPod up to a personal computer (w/nice monitor) to view the images.

    To sum up, RTFA

  • This is cool but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It just seems like they were looking for a bit of an excuse to use Mac technology. What I've got a bit of a problem with is using .Mac for a place to store medical images for sharing amongst colleagues. I don't know if that would really meet with security and confidentiality requirements for this kind of data. What they really need to do is set up their own secure server. Which raises this somewhat offtopic question: Does anyone know how to set up their own .Mac webdav server and tricking Tiger into thinkin
  • Viewing/manipulating/storing visual medical data on a high-end desktop computer makes sense to me. I'd presume that such machines would exist in hospitals, and in doctor's offices, but I am lost as to any reason for the ipod, even after reading the article. Many people, during commutes by train/plain or what not, listen to music, watch video, or play games on devices such as ipods. Do physicians instead flip through MRI scan output to pass the time? I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing my doctor is walking
    • You may have RTFM'd, but they do mention that they're dealing with quantities of data that won't fit on a DVDR. Many hospitals don't have giant fat broadband links to habitually transfer that kind of data with them either. So they're mainly using the iPod as a really convenient 40Gb-60Gb portable hard drive that travels with the patient or doctor because a bunch of them from a publicity-hungry Apple (who probably give them a discount) is a lot cheaper than installing that fat hospital network.
      • Over here in the US, we put MRI's on DVD's (and CD's) all of the time. Unless you are manipulating the images, the actual data burden of an MRI isn't all that high. The standard presentation form for an MRI is an approximately 13 x 19" piece of film, on which are printed around 20 "slices" of information. (Can't recall exact number at the moment). That's about 20 3 x 4 inch grey scale images. Not the last word in bandwith hogging pixel numbers.
      • DVDs might these days

        But then you have to wait several times as long to burn the DVD vs. copy to HD.
        And a DVD would be harder to carry around.
        Plus, IMO, the HD solution is more re-usable, even compared to DVD-RW media.

        Other factors for the iPod would include the ability to add voice notes/dictation to go along with the images. Something a "generic" external drive wouldn't work well for.

  • Patient confidentiality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by graemecoates (592009) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:26AM (#13888070) Homepage
    There are things we have in place to ensure security and patient confidentiality. There are rules to go by. It's not the tools that pose a security risk -- it's the users. The software has a function that enables the physician to strip the image of any personal data that identifies the person, like their name, their date of birth etc. As long as that is done then it is a secure, anonymous system.

    Good to see they have addressed the risk of patient data being leaked (iPod being nicked or left on the bus), but the article isn't entirely clear on what the procedure for stripping the patient data is - does the user have to do it themselves, or does the software force you to do it each time you upload an image?

    Still a very cool use - though maybe not one that could be easily rolled out across all areas of medicine unless it needs virtually zero technical know-how...

  • I don't think this would fly in the US. (Score:4, Informative)

    by jeffs72 (711141) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:27AM (#13888073) Journal
    HIPPA is an utter pain in the ass from a compliance perspective, mainly because provisions in it make it very easy to litigate on. Are the images stored in 128 encrypted format on the IPOD? Does the software do journaling to document the identity of those who view it?

    Shame really, our legal system is going to make adoption of new tools (in medicine in particular) difficult.

    Still a neat concept. She should win an award or something just for outside the box thinking.

  • Let me pound this square nail into this round hole (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LaughingCoder (914424) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:27AM (#13888074)
    Using an iPod to store medical images is not a very good idea. There is no security, and no data integrity. And iPods are much more likely to be stolen than, say, a burned CD. All of that said, having a portable storage medium for medical images makes some sense. Perhaps this is yet another application for USB thumbdrives. Add some encryption (TrueCrypt) and an application (Osiris) that can be run from the drive and you might have a nifty little product.
      • I agree - the doctor in this case is really just using the iPod as a portable hard drive. All physicians have to know is "plug in iPod, pictures go in. Plug in iPod, and select the picture you want to see". The software takes care of the rest.

        There's nothing stopping someone from modifying the display software to encrypt the messages. I work in health care (systems and security architecture), and this would be a simple enough add-on.

        Besides, people stealing the iPod are more likely to wipe out the files and just use it as a music player than spend time looking at some guy's X-ray images. (Unless they *really* get off on those kind of things.)

  • Not really thousands of dollars (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spectasaurus (415658) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:28AM (#13888083)
    I work in medical imaging, and I have used Osirix. It is easily one of the best open source image display programs around. The other most notable is Amide, but I digress. Osirix works well for scientists and others looking to save money, but I think physicians would have a difficult time saying it is better then the commercial vendors software. Commercial workstations are tens of thousands of dollars, and while the price is extremely inflated, you do often get a lot of functionality for that money. Osirix is no substitute for that. Osirix works fine as a third display terminal or something in the doctor's office, but I wouldn't want any radiologists I know using it as their primary reporting station.

    The part about the iPods is interesting too. Having ready and portable access to images is neat, but of course, this is not used as a primary reporting tool. It is useful to take to conferences to share interesting cases, etc, but not for any other great purpose.

  • Musical bedside manner (Score:5, Funny)

    by ewg (158266) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:29AM (#13888086)
    Plus, the doctors can have musical discussions with their patients, everything from "Doctor, doctor, gimme the news" to "I can see clearly now, the pain is gone"...
    • everything from "Doctor, doctor, gimme the news" to "I can see clearly now, the pain is gone"...

      Well, well, well, you're feeling fine...

      aside: I was tremendously amused, cracking into the medical computer systems in VtM: Bloodlines, to find a staff appraisal for a terrific doctor who 'has never lost a patient. No-one can succeed like Doctor Robert.'

      Anyway. I've got this coconut here, but I think it needs something to add to the flavour. Any ideas? Doctor?

  • Gifts from hospitals (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dan East (318230) on Thursday October 27 2005, @08:08AM (#13888280) Homepage
    This is interesting. My first thought was why not use an external HDD - it would cost a fraction of the price, and would not be nearly as appealing a target for thieves.

    Having worked in a hospital for a number of years, the real purpose behind this is evident. Hospitals like to give doctors stuff. Expensive stuff like PDAs and wristwatches, as well as basic stuff like umbrellas, pens, satchels and the free food and drinks well stocked in the physician break rooms. Hospitals make their money by having patients, and besides the Emergency Department, all patients are admitted to the hospital (or referred to for various procedures) by doctors. So hospitals like to give things to physicians to thank them for making them money. In the USA laws exist, and have been strengthened in the last several years, seriously limiting what hospitals can provide for physicians. This is of course to keep these gifts from becoming outright bribes.

    Now in the case of these iPods we see a loophole. A way for the hospital to purchase really, really nice gifts for their doctors, under the pretense that it has some medical use. Quite interesting indeed.

    Dan East

  • I do this for a living and... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by altek (119814) on Thursday October 27 2005, @08:32AM (#13888428) Homepage
    I can say that there are a LOT of things wrong with this article. This is pre-school journalism at its best. Hear me out...

    My job title is PACS Administrator, which means I run the servers, network, diagnostic systems, etc for medical imaging in Radiology and other departments in a major healthcare organization.

    Let me tell you, there are A LOT of problems with something like this. Some of this will be redundant, but I'm trying to capture everything into one post. First of all, the iPod is seen as a generic external hard drive. Big deal, they made their free DICOM viewer software have the ability to export to an external drive. Second, this is a MAJOR patient confidentiality issue, and I believe is considered legal under HIPAA, but if a physician, clinician, etc lost the iPod, they could go to JAIL. I'm not kidding.

    Also, they also allude to actually viewing images on the photo iPods. I cannot imagine any image that could even be useful to a non-Radiology (referring phsyician, surgeon, etc) on those screens. About the lowest quality image that is useful even for referrals or comparisons is a 2MP monitor that displays at least 1280 resolution. Anything less than that is pretty much medically worthless, and for Radiologists, you typically need a 3MP display for proper detail, not to mention special graphics hardware.

    I'm not quite sure if this CNN article is a cry for publicity from the developers of OsiriX, or Apple. The product page for Osirix barely even mentions the iPod functionality (in the changelogs), yet I doubt Apple would bother publicizing this.

    As for the journalistic integrity, c'mon... I mean, the reporter spelled DICOM (format for medical image storage and transfer), "Diacom". They even spell out what it stands for after that, I don't see any A's in there!

    Conclusion: you should all be very scared of careless happy-go-lucky doctors and clinicians running around with your patient data on their iPod at the gym trying to see whether you have a brain tumor while jogging in the park, when someone steals their iPod and sells it on eBay!
      • No, if you bothered to read before posting you'd see that Osirix has a button on it specifically for exporting to and importing from the iPod. Yes, technically the iPod is acting as a firewire drive, but the software has a special interface specifically for dealing with the iPod that makes using the iPod much easier than reading/writing files on an external disk.

        Oh WOW, so it's handled just slightly differently than writing to a generic disk, let's put it on CNN!!

        Wrong again. My girlfriend is a surgical re

    • Re:I feel comforted (Score:5, Informative)

      by johahoff (848114) on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:13AM (#13888021)
      You could have read the article, they just use the iPods to save the photo and carry it around (the photo capability of the iPod was added even after the project was started).
    • looking at pictures of my broken bones on a 2.5" screen, and than make decisions based on that.

      Hospitals I have been to recently have had a few ultra high resolution LCD monitors for thir purpose. They are orientated vertically, much like an old style X ray.

      I could believe emailing the images around for people who can't be on the spot and have a resonable monitor, but this sounds silly.

      • If you read the artical it states the store and run the diacom images off the ipod but doesnt say naything baout viewing the images on the ipod screan. After reading the artical i intrepreted it as the ipod is a cheap portable hard drive.
        • The problem comes with the article poster's claiming that they "use iPods to view medical images." No one RsTFA, seeing that it ought to have been more clearly phrased, as the CNN article (and the title of the /. article) does, "use [iPods] to store medical images."

    • Re:I feel comforted (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2005, @07:33AM (#13888103)
      I do medical imaging in the U.S. for a livelihood. I'm pretty sure nobody has ever done a clinical read (e.g. medical evaluation resulting in a report) on the iPod. Anyone who would do that should have their board cert pulled and probably would do something else equally stupid. OSIRIS has been around for a while -- I don't see why it's news. The real issue is medical record privacy and the thought of med images running around on an iPod scares the bejeezus out of the boards or people responsible for HIPAA compliance at most institutions. If leaked, the header info that comes with a DICOM formatted data set easily violates privacy at a level sufficient to trigger a $15k slap on the wrist and/or 6months jail time.

      For most imaging modalities reading on a 14 or 15" is not enough -- though I suppose PET/SPECT and UltraSound may be exceptions. Heck even high quality jpg compression can be lossy enough to cause missed stress fractures.
      • Mod the parent up. The first thing I thought when I saw this was 'not HIPAA compliant'. Unless someone comes out with a hack to let you encrypt the iPod hard drive, require a secure password to let you view the images, etc, etc, there is no way I'd want an M.D. using this.

        This might fly in Switzerland, but it's not going to comply with US laws.

        • Radiologists print X-Rays out and store them in unlocked, unencrypted manila folders. They even put them in their cars and take them home to write their reports. HIPAA laws aren't violated (as long as they don't show them to other people), so what's the worry?

      • d, the header info that comes with a DICOM formatted data set easily violates privacy at a level sufficient to trigger a $15k slap on the wrist and/or 6months jail time.

        They stripped the files of identifiable information prior to saving on the iPod. And if this was still an issue, there's no reason the files couldn't also be encrypted.

        Having said that, I'm still not sure its the most cost-effective way of doing things (vs. a generic external HD).
      • If leaked, the header info that comes with a DICOM formatted data set easily violates privacy at a level sufficient to trigger a $15k slap on the wrist and/or 6months jail time.

        Ahh, another sucker who bought the consultants' scare stories... You don't get the big fines and jail times for inadvertent disclosures. Those are explicitly reserved for deliberate disclosure for gain, in other words selling medical records under the table. It's of course still good to be concerned about the potential for accidenta

    • Re:I feel comforted (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Midnight Thunder (17205) on Thursday October 27 2005, @08:01AM (#13888244) Homepage Journal
      Ideas are always great, the practice is something else.

      As mentioned in the article they are using is as a storage mechanism. While DVDs probably are big enough, they are also a lot more hassle to create quickly. In itself there isn't anything news worthy. They added the ability to save previews, that can be viewed on the iPod. While most people wouldn't want to do a detailed analysis, it is an easy way to see the obvious and even verify what you saved on your iPod. Plenty of other media devices could be used, but these guys are Mac developers, so they stick with what they know. Had they been MS-Windows developers, then they probably would have been using an iRiver device and MSN Messenger.

      The tablet PC defeats the purpose of having a small portable device that you can take with you, and that tablet PC probably don't have the resolution need for displaying the images. iPods don't either, but you can easily plug them into a computer that does.

      These guys are essentially trying to share news of their product. The fact that CNN gave them an article to do so is kudos to them.

    • Re:I feel comforted (Score:4, Funny)

      by fafaforza (248976) on Thursday October 27 2005, @09:11AM (#13888654)
      I'm afraid that you have cancer. I am deeply sorry. However, with proper chemotherapy and a positive outlook, chances are high that you can beat this dis...... wait.. wait.... That discoloration on your chart looks to be a Cheeto from breakfast. Nevermind!
    • How'd you figure out a patient's "personal details" from a CAT scan or MRI image ? As long as it just has a tag with it and no personally identifying information with the image, it should be ok.
    • If only you'd bothered to continue reading to the next paragraph...

      There are things we have in place to ensure security and patient confidentiality. There are rules to go by. It's not the tools that pose a security risk -- it's the users. The software has a function that enables the physician to strip the image of any personal data that identifies the person, like their name, their date of birth etc. As long as that is done then it is a secure, anonymous system.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.