THE DWYER LECTURE – GENERAL SESSION

Peering Over Sam’s Shoulders into the Next Generation of PACS

Friday, June 8, 2012
9:45 am – 11:15 am
Royal Palms Ballroom

Dr. Eliot Siegel

2012 Dwyer Lecturer

Eliot L. Siegel, MD, FSIIM
Professor & Vice Chair of Radiology,
University of Maryland School of Medicine;
Chief of Imaging, VA Maryland Health Care System

NEWSREEL: What improvements do you see impacting the next generation of PACS?
View answer here.

Introduced by Richard L. Morin, PhD, FSIIM
President, College of SIIM Fellows

Dr. Sam Dwyer was a visionary whose extraordinary research and pioneering work made the first generation of PACS possible and, ultimately, practical. However, he also put a great deal of thought into next-generation systems and was always excited to speculate about where things would go in the future.

The first generation of picture archiving and communication systems were initially focused on making the transition from film to filmless operation a reality and consequently emulated film-based workflow. Although subsequent improvements in performance and productivity were added, today’s systems remain limited by our collective consciousness/legacy from the era of film and paper requisitions and telephones.

The next generation of PACS and radiology information systems offers the potential to leap past those initial assumptions and constraints to deliver a more interactive, intelligent, connected, secure, and flexible solution that more closely emulates and takes advantage of developments in computer technology that have occurred during the past 20 years. These improvements include intelligent and more inclusive archival, communication systems that close and recursively reclose the communication loop on imaging findings, and decoupling of systems from their previous physical constraints, improved security, all contributing to a new era of interactive, smart, and intuitive interfaces that together will provide increasingly meaningful clinical information and decision support. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of the potential implications of technology such as the artificial radiology “fellow” and IBM’s “Dr. Watson” technologies.

Objectives:

  1. Discover innovations that are likely to alter ways in which we interact with data but the entire practice of radiology.
  2. Analyze changes that should be embraced by the radiological and imaging communities, so that we remain closely involved with the identification, testing, acceptance, and adoption of those technologies that are best for the profession and for our patients.
  3. Describe ways to train new imaging specialists about integrating the best aspects of new technologies on a routine basis.