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SIIM White Papers
SIIM’s Research & Development program has been active in identifying a pressing need to foster basic scientific research and reporting in the imaging informatics community. This effort has led to the publication of a series of white papers on topics related to SIIM's research objectives. The first white paper on image compression was delivered at the first R&D Symposium held in 2001. In 2002, the group studied the impact of technology on the workflow in the radiology department. In 2003, the group identified the extraordinary increase in the volume of imaging studies as one of the most urgent problems in contemporary medicine. The Transforming the Radiological Interpretation Process (TRIPTM) initiative was launched in and SIIM held its first TRIPTM conference in early 2005. To date, two (2) TRIPTM white papers have been published.
Katherine P. Andriole, PhD and Richard L. Morin, PhD The First Society for Computer Applications in Radiology (SCAR) Transforming the Radiological Interpretation Process (TRIP)(tm) Conference and Workshop, "Transforming Medical Imaging" was held on January 31 - February 1, 2005 in Bethesda, MD. Representatives from all areas of medical and scientific imaging academia, research, industry, and government agencies joined together to discuss the future of medical imaging and potential new ways to manage the explosion in numbers, size and complexity of images generated by today's continually advancing imaging technologies. The two-day conference included plenary, scientific poster and breakout sessions covering six major research areas related to TRIP(tm). These topic areas included human perception, image processing and computer-aided detection, data visualization, image set navigation and usability, databases and systems integration, and methodology evaluation and performance validation.
Katherine P. Andriole, PhD This document is intended to outline the historical background to today’s information overload, assess the literature that addresses challenges involved in finding solutions, provide specific indications of areas in which these solutions may lie, and briefly describe SCAR’s efforts at identifying both immediate and long-term answers to the most pressing questions that will face radiology in the coming decades.
Bradley Erickson, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic Foundation, Rochester, MN This paper discusses the use of irreversible compression as a means of storing and transmitting radiological images. Difficulties with storage and transfer requirements of medical images have hampered attempts to implement picture archiving and communications systems and teleradiology. Irreversible or “lossy” techniques can reduce images by arbitrarily large ratios but do not perfectly reproduce the original image. However, the author suggests that reproduction may be good enough, that image degradation is not visible and diagnostic value is not compromised. This paper reviews the application of image compression techniques to medical imagery, focusing on the irreversible methods, including the rising JPEG2000 standard. Also included is a review of measures for evaluating compression algorithm performance and some of the recent results for wavelet compression.
Bruce I. Reiner, MD The study was initiated by the SCAR R&D Committee in response to reports of increasing shortages in the radiologic technologist (RT) workforce. At the same time, the daily work of the RT is undergoing radical change as picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) and other digital technologies are installed and linked to comprehensive radiology and hospital information systems. Although these technologies are clearly the wave of the future in radiology, little or no data is available to support decision making or to assess how these significant changes will affect the ways in which radiology staff members do their work. The survey, conducted in 2001 in cooperation with IMV Medical Information Division, Inc., included 112 responding institutions (community, university, and government hospitals and high-volume outpatient imaging centers). The purpose of the survey was twofold: to determine the impact of digital technologies on technologist productivity and to utilize this information to optimize operational efficiencies within medical imaging departments.
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