A Multimedia Medical Communication Link Between A Radiology Department And An Emergency Department

M. Goldberg; J. Robertson; G. Belanger; N. Georganas; J. Mastronardi; S. Cohn-Sfetcu; R. Dillon; J. Tombaugh

doi:10.1117/12.953344

25 May 1989 A Multimedia Medical Communication Link Between A Radiology Department And An Emergency Department

M. Goldberg, J. Robertson, G. Belanger, N. Georganas, J. Mastronardi, S. Cohn-Sfetcu, R. Dillon, J. Tombaugh

Proceedings Volume 1093, Medical Imaging III: PACS System Design and Evaluation; (1989) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.953344
Event: Medical Imaging III, 1989, Newport Beach, CA, United States

Abstract

The most critical aspect of a radiologist's work is the communication of his findings to the attending physician responsible for the patient's care. This is also the part of the process that is least well organized and the most subject to failure. At the University of Ottawa Medical Communications Research Centre we are investigating technical means to improve communications between radiologists and attending physicians. We first introduce the radiology communication service problem and show why it is essentially a multimedia communication problem. We then briefly describe a multimedia communication system designed and implemented by our research team. The multimedia system consists of several workstations linked by the Hospital's LAN. Each physician workstation comprises a Compaq 386/20 Mhertz microcomputer with 16 Mbytes of RAM, a 500 Mbyte image disk, an image memory which drives a 1000 line monochrome monitor. The images are digitized using a Konica laser-based film digitizer (2430 by 2000 10-bit pixels for a standard chest radiograph). The multimedia file server manager station is built around a PC-AT compatible with a Northern Telecom MERIDIAN® SL-1ST digital PBX and a Meridian Mail digital voice messaging system. This last device is used to store voice data and is linked via the PBX to the workstations' digital telephones. A SYTEK® 6000 local area network (LAN) links all workstations to the file server. All data, image and graphic information is transmitted via this network, while the twisted pair connections linking the digital PBX to the telephone sets are used for transmitting voice data. Finally, we provide details of an in-hospital trial linking the Department of Radiological Sciences and the Emergency Department at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, a 950 bed tertiary care teaching hospital.

Citation Download Citation

M. Goldberg, J. Robertson, G. Belanger, N. Georganas, J. Mastronardi, S. Cohn-Sfetcu, R. Dillon, and J. Tombaugh "A Multimedia Medical Communication Link Between A Radiology Department And An Emergency Department", Proc. SPIE 1093, Medical Imaging III: PACS System Design and Evaluation, (25 May 1989); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.953344

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