US expert to discuss PACS data ownership

A leading US imaging informatics expert, Dr David Clunie, will be one of the guest speakers at the Royal College of Radiologists’ specialist group spring meeting in April.

He will speak in sessions on picture archiving and communications system data ownership and on the automated recording of radiation doses given to patients from modalities.

Chair of the UK Imaging Informatics Group, Dr Neelam Dugar, explained the importance of this theme.

Radiation dose monitoring is currently done by the radiographer, who checks the dose as it is delivered, and records it on the radiology information system with a manual data entry, she explained.

This process takes up the radiographer’s time and may not be very accurate. “We asked ’why can’t it be recorded automatically on the PACS?’” said Dr Dugar.

The next step beyond automated recording would be to create a national registry to monitor radiation doses. “I think PACS should be able to populate a national registry.

“This would be a very good resource, for example to compare doses given in different hospitals, different CT scanners and so on.”

Recording radiation doses given cumulatively is important to protect patients from radiation-induced cancers such as thyroid tumours.

Dr Clunie is co-chair of the Radiology Technical Committee at IHE, chief technical officer at CoreLab Partners, and proprietor at PixelMed Publishing.

He will also discuss “why standards are key to the concept of PACS data ownership” in the session devoted to customer ownership of PACS data.

Dr Dugar explained: “It is very difficult to change [systems] at the end of a contract because data is locked. If vendors realise you cannot change their system, they will become complacent and will not innovate.

“We must be able to change PACS or the NHS will never get the best out of new technologies. That applies not only to PACS but to RIS,” she said.

Other sessions at the meeting at the British Institute of Radiology in London on 27 April will look at PACS and RIS procurements and RIS/ PACS on mobile devices.

The UK Imaging Informatics Group will be co-locating its autumn meeting at EHI Live 2012 in Birmingham, on 6-7 November. For more information, potential sponsors and exhibitors should contact Neil Hadland.