Reading Rooms
Back before most people could even spell PACS, we read from film, and nothing but film, and our offices reflect that legacy. This is the plan of one of our hospital reading room suites from 1990, still in use today:The plan consists of eight similarly-sized offices, with X-ray view boxes on one wall, built-in shelves and a big wooden desk. The room hanging off the edge is the restroom, if you couldn't tell. Today, four of these offices have hospital PACS workstations, with one of these also having a PACS station for our PACS, and another having a Nuclear Medicine workstation. Another only houses our PACS computer. Two of ...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - November 15, 2015 Category: Radiology Source Type: blogs
Paris...
I have no eloquent words of comfort beyond those many have already spoken. We have lost yet more innocent lives in the name of unspeakable evil. Paris faced the terror over the weekend that Israel faces every hour. It MUST end. This is a war. Literally, the war between good and evil. There is only one possible outcome, but it will be painfully achieved. Prepare for some painful times ahead. (Source: Dalai's PACS Blog)
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - November 15, 2015 Category: Radiology Source Type: blogs
Je Suis Juif, Je Suis Charlie
50 world leaders, and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, marched in solidarity with the French cartoonists and Jewish civilians, slaughtered by radical Islamists. You will notice that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Palestinian leader Abbas, marched to either side of French President Holland. Not present? Our own President, the so-called leader of the Free World. His lame-duck, racist Attorney General was supposed to be our representative, but he was nowhere to be seen in the very extensive coverage. What message did we just deliver to the rest of the world? That we don't care, that we are above it a...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - January 11, 2015 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
Apple Watch Clone?
I will probably be one of the first in line for the Apple Watch, at least if it can be ordered online. Supposedly, the grand release will come in March, with pricing ranging from $350 for the aluminum sport flavor to $5,000 or more for the gold "Edition" version. I'll probably go for the $500 steel on steel version:Even though the darn thing hasn't even been released yet, there are manufacturers in China who have already cloned the look and feel, if not the mini iOS experience, and you can be the first on the block to have an Apple Watch, or at least something that looks like one:A few reporters have had a chance to play w...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - January 9, 2015 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam...Lovely Spam, Wonderful E-mail and Telemarketing Spam...
We've all likely had about a hundred calls from "Rachel" at "Cardholder Services". This telemarketing-robocalling scam has been around for years. Several of the vermin perpetrating this garbage were shut down, but others have taken up the call, so to speak, and "Rachel" lives on. Apparently there are quite a few idiots out there who will give out their credit card number to the piece of excrement cold-calling their phone. There is indeed a sucker born every minute.I've reported every instance to the FTChttps://complaints.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspxand of course all of my phones are listed with the Do Not Ca...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - December 30, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
Yosemite Slam
Yosemite Sam, character copyright Warner Brothers Studios, image courtesy of dailyinspires.comI've been a lover of Apple products from almost the beginning. My very second computer was a Mac Plus with a whopping one MEG (yes MEGABYTE) of RAM. (My first computer was a TI 99 that didn't do much but hey, it was a computer!) I've since owned or been responsible for the purchase of well over one hundred Apple Macs, not to mention an equal number of iPhones and iPads, half a dozen or so iPods, and even a Newton. I keep hoping for Apple to get into the PACS/EMR game, as their approach to an interface would hopefully provide...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - December 30, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
An Hour and Thirty-Five Seconds With George W. Bush
It's a hard life, but someone has to do it.I'm writing from frigid Chicago, where the air temperature is something around 20 degrees, and the wind chill is 50 below numbness. I'm here for the 100th Anniversary Edition of RSNA, and one must brave adverse conditions to attend so momentous an occasion.If you are reading my illustrious blog, you must have some connection to radiology, and thus you've probably attended RSNA at least once. If so, you know that the most important part of the whole meeting is the parties that come after hours. In years past, the big vendors have put on some really incredible soirees, with open bar...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - December 2, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
Meeting With The PACS Giants And Other RSNA Tales
There is a touch of melancholy for me here at RSNA 2014 to go with the 20 degree nip in the air. I'm not one to dwell much on the deep meanings of beginings and endings, but while strolling the exhibits today, I realized that I've been attending this monster of a convention on and off since I was a Nuclear Medicine Fellow in 1990. And it occurs to me that since I'm now semi-retired, it is possible that I won't return next year. But we'll see how that goes.One of the joys of RSNA, and my fame, or at least notariety in the field, is the chance to meet up with those far more promienent in the field than I. Hence the title of ...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - December 1, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
EMR: Round Peg, Square Hole From The Sunrise Rounds Blog
Dalai's note: My rather vocal presentation of my views on medical IT have earned me an international speaking career. It is sad to see that nothing much has changed over all the time I've been blogging and speaking on this issue. In fact, even though it is more ubiquitous, medical software remains as useless and confounding as ever. It is gratifying, however, to see others take up the cause of improving this potentially deadly deficit. As cross-published on KevinMD.com, this piece from Dr. James Salwitz, an oncologist who blogs on SunriseRounds.com, takes a similar approach to lambast those who dump their (soft...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - November 5, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
Epic Fails And Deadly IT Cultures (An OPINION Piece)
The Ebola Virus...Image courtesy of scienceblogs.comIt's bad enough that a fellow from Liberia by the name of Thomas Eric Duncan through hubris, stupidity, or simply bad luck brought Ebola to our shores. He did ultimately seek medical attention in the Emergency Room of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas when he became symptomatic with the characteristic fever and pain of an Ebola infection. In fact, he presented twice to the Dallas ER. In between his two visits, Mr. Duncan was set loose on a city of well over a million souls while his disease was at its most infectious level. (He has since died of the disease, an...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - October 13, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
Saving Candy Crush
What may seem obvious to some can be mysterious to others. Case in point: the introduction of Western-style toilets to parts of China. It was necessary to provide pictographic instructions to be sure the new equipment was utilized properly:Assuming you have flown on a commercial airliner ever in your life, you've had to sit through what some would consider an equally-foolish instruction set: the safety briefing. This is how you buckle your seat belt, if the plane goes down somewhere it shouldn't, find the closest exit unless said exit is under water, in which case you should go elsewhere. And of course, if the oxygen masks...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - October 12, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
From The Healthcare Blog: How To Discourage A Doctor
Dalai's note: A piece by Dr. Richard Gunderman posted on TheHealthcareBlog.com. It is unclear whether or not Dr. Gunderman's "discovery" is a real document or not. Still, it would seem to explain a lot of what we are seeing in healthcare today...How To Discourage a DoctorNot accustomed to visiting hospital executive suites, I took my seat in the waiting room somewhat warily.Seated across from me was a handsome man in a well-tailored three-piece suit, whose thoroughly professional appearance made me – in my rumpled white coat, sheaves of dog-eared paper bulging from both pockets – feel out of place.Within a ...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - September 26, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
"Value-based care: Bad for doctors, bad for patients?"
Dalai's note: Here is another piece cross published from KevinMD.com. I have a huge level of antipathy toward "Value-Based" reimbursement. From the beginning, I smelled a rat. How could we in radiology in particular prove the "value" of what we do in a manner that would convince those who hold the purse strings that we should actually be paid for our efforts? If, for example, we tell the ER doc that his order for a CT is inappropriate, we save the system money, and risk a lawsuit. If we let it go through, and it is negative as expected, we are dinged for charging the system for something that didn't produce "value". ...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - September 25, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
iWant
'Nuff said. (Source: Dalai's PACS Blog)
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - September 9, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
I never understood the loss of empathy during medical training. Until now.
Another incredibly powerful post published on KevinMD.com, this from an anonymous medical student. Read it and weep. I did.It was 4:30 a.m., and I was on the side of the road, drenched in sweat and tears. I had finally slowed my breathing to normal. I was going to be late for rounds. No time to obsess over possible questions. No time to memorize lab values, or practice regurgitating them.I thought of home. My family and friend, who I hadn’t seen in months. I cringed when I estimated how long it had been since I called them. And the place itself. The dry, clean heat of the desert. The pump jacks that dotted the landscape....
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - September 9, 2014 Category: Radiologists Source Type: blogs
