lifeIMAGE and the Quest for Medical Imaging Exchange

Medical imaging--first X-Rays, and later CAT scans, ultrasound, and MRIs--was one of the first areas of medicine to computerize, and images are routinely distributed in digital format around the world for diagnosis, training, and storage. But the field still fails to capitalize on many of the advantages that other parts of the computer field take for granted: access anywhere, seamless integration, and (perhaps most important for a health field) clear enforcement of permissions...

Like all areas of cloud computing (and health IT, for that matter), this one is growing fast. Right after talking to [Hamid] Tabatabaie, I heard two more announcements of cloud services for medical images, one from DR Systems (whose eMix service was the first cloud service for medical images) and another from Merge HealthCare. Other areas of health IT have a woeful history of misunderstanding and riding roughshod over the needs of the clinicians and patients who use them; Tabatabaie assured me that lifeIMAGE is different. Here are some areas we discussed...