Cardiovascular Business - January/February 2008 - (Page 30)

soPHIsTICaTeD VIeWInG › By sArAH L AMBErti The Medical Displays for Cardiac Images In the realm of diagnostic displays, the line between color and grayscale is starting to blur. Many facilities are embracing such a merge—presenting a variety of color and grayscale medical images along with other critical patient information in comprehensive displays with multiple monitors to review studies across different modalities. Big Picture T he challenge for many facilities in choosing displays to view cardiac and cardiovascular images is to find solutions that work for the diverse array of procedures such as cardiac catheterization, echocardiography, nuclear medicine, and cardiac CT and MRI. “Medical displays are like football linemen— you don’t notice them unless they do something wrong,” says David Derr, MD, the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in Jackson, Miss. Derr reads and reviews 3D cardiac MR, cardiac CT, angiography and fluoroscopy using 2 megapixel (MP) and 3MP color and 3MP grayscale Coronis diagnostic displays from Barco. “For as long as I can look at my displays, they work, there is no image distortion and the color looks good, I am pretty happy,” he says. “These monitors have not been turned off in almost three years.” UMMC is a 722-bed, tertiary-care facility with approximately 27,000 inpatient visits and 418,000 outpatient and emergency visits annually. This Level 1 trauma center offers specialized services that include interventional MRI; separate medical, surgical, cardiac, neuroscience and pediatric ICUs; a heart station for diagnosis and treatment of heart disease; a heart failure clinic; heart, kidney, cornea and bone marrow transplant programs; a comprehensive stroke unit; state-of-the-art radiological imaging systems. Three years ago, Derr says that as part of an upgrade, the hospital installed a new PACS from Stentor, and decided to upgrade the facility’s monitors as well. “We were looking for reliability, good luminescence, and remote QA [quality assurance] features,” he says. According to Derr, the 27 workstations have either a two or four-monitor configuration, including a mix of color and grayscale. Consistency across the workstations eliminates the need to move from one workstation to another to switch applications, he says. A user the university of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., has invested in 27 workstations that utilize a combination of grayscale and color displays from Barco. can view both grayscale and color images in one location. Derr stresses that reliability is key for medical displays, an unobtrusive yet essential part of the entire hospital system. “Displays must be reliable—dead pixels are distracting,” Derr says. “You want good luminescence, good color reproduction and it has to be reliable—you cannot have pixels going out on you. We wanted the best of the best.” He says it doesn’t matter “how good your scanners are, if you don’t have good monitors, you can’t take advantage of them.” UMMC has top of the line displays, beginning with the 17-inch Coronis color 2MP with its 600x1200 resolution for more accurate di- 0 Cardiovascular Business January/february 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cardiovascular Business - January/February 2008

Cardiovascular Business - January/February 2008 Contents The Ticker: Quality Pays in Several Ways Cover Story: The Proof: Why Evidence-based Medicine Improves Cardiac Care Clinical Study Digest: Co-payments and Cath Labs Cardiac PET/CT Fills in Gaps Left by SPECT Tapping into IT to Improve the Office-Based Practice SPECT–Proving Its Value Cardiac Images in the EMR: Just a Click Away The Top 20 Ways to Market Your Cardiac CTA Practice The Big Picture: Medical Displays for Cardiac Images Statins Work But Pharmacoeconomic Caveats Abound Driving Data Protection: Opting for Storage On- or Offsite News & Views Calendar Reader’s Resource

Cardiovascular Business - January/February 2008

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