SIIM15: Pictures at an exhibition

Chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee Richard H. Wiggins III, MD, FSIIM, CIIP, opened the meeting with an overview of the learning domains that rounded out this year’s theme, “Creating the Image Enabled Enterprise,” May 28–30, 2015, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Md.

Swag Thursday

David E. Brown, CIIP, chair of the SIIM board of directors, wears a vintage backpack from the 2005 SCAR meeting, when the Society for Informatics in Medicine was known as the Society for Computer Applications in Radiology. Kudos to the prescient person who had the foresight to suggest that name change.

Tap into the Internet of Things

Frequent SIIM presenter, radiologist and serial entrepreneur Khan Siddiqui, MD, has built a consumer health and wellness company, blanketing the country with kiosks that provided 100 million free screenings last year. Its product: a simple number that combines all health and wellness information into a “higi score.”

Siddiqui held up a series of miniaturized sensors that are based on near field communication (NFC) protocols that can be used to connect devices such as smartphones, wearables, and any other “thing” that has been tagged with an NFC sensor. “They are next-generation RFID, for any use case where you want to sense something happening, analyze it and act on it,” Siddiqui said.

They also are very inexpensive, between 50 cents and $10.  Siddiqui programmed a sensor from the podium and started sending emails and identifying wearables throughout the room. If patients wore one, they could immediately be checked in upon entering a hospital. If a portable x-ray machine wore one, it would never get lost again. Radiology applications, anyone?

Calling All Informatics Fellows

Tessa Cook, MD, is in her second year directing the informatics fellowship program at the University of Pennsylvania. The program had eight fellows the first year (2013–14) and four this year (2014-15). Topics include database design and management; hardware; software and communications standards in imaging; basic scripting and application design; social media; and systems interoperability. The deadline has passed for the (2015–16) program, but it’s not too early to begin thinking about 2016-2017.

Changing of the Guard

Safwan Halabi, MD, (left) is leaving his position as director of IT at Henry Ford Health System, to join Curtis Langlotz, MD, at Stanford Health Care. Daniel Siegal, MD, a musculoskeletal radiologist in the radiology department at Henry Ford , will take the reins as director of IT.

On the CDS Trail

Scott Cowsill has been a familiar face in radiology decision support circles for at least ten years, first with Nuance, where he was active with the Imaging e-ordering Coalition and next with the National Decision Support Company, which licenses the ACR’s Appropriateness Criteria.  He was spotted at SIIM wearing a nametag with AIM Specialty Health, the Chicago-based RBM, where he is now senior director, clinical decision support.

What Retirement Looks Like

J. Raym Geis, MD, may not be reading imaging studies for his former practice, Advanced Medical Imaging Consultants, PC, but he is keeping busy between duties at SIIM, where he is past president, the ACR, where he is vice chair, informatics commission, and projects with the RSNA.

The Imaging Interloper

If there is one imaging modality few foresaw ten years ago, it has to be the smart phone camera, used in medicine way more than anyone suspected. As imaging informaticists dig into the details of archiving non-DICOM images, they are struggling with a method to associate the image with the patient and to secure patient data.

Neuroradiologist and informaticist Gary Wendt, MD, has come up with a method for HIPAA-compliant mobile photo capture that can load a mobile photo into the EMR using an app, a QR code and a virtual machine. The image is converted to DICOM and the photo does not remain on the phone. “Since there is no personal health information on the phone, you don’t need to log in to anything, and you don’t need a VPN,” Wendt said.

The app is available in the iTunes and Android app stores, and Wendt sees a big opportunity to make post-operative wound care more efficient and to reduce readmissions as well. “If you can eliminate 50% of post operative follow-up, it lets you deploy those resources to other things that are more productive,” Wendt notes. He has commercialized the solution as Wits MD.

Until Next Year

The eagle at the edge of National Harbor provided an inspirational  site for imaging informaticists as the sun set on the 2015 SIIM meeting. Next year’s destination: Portland, Oregon.