mirracle: An Augmented Reality Magic Mirror System for Anatomy Education

The people who developed Mirracle uploaded a new demonstration movie to Youtube, check it out!
The system uses the concept of an augmented reality magic mirror to create the illusion that the user has a kind of X-ray view into her own body. Such a system can e.g. be used for education of anatomy. It uses the Microsoft Kinect to estimate the position of the user. This work has been done by Tobias Blum and Nassir Navab from the Chair for Computer Aided Medical Procedures & Augmented Reality (http://campar.in.tum.de/).

KineMed - Gestural interface for Philips iSite

Developing a gestural user interface for examination of medical images using the Kinect. This project was done in association with residents from UPMC, Pittsburgh and was demonstrated at RSNA, 2011

Health IT coming of age

Mostashari shares visions of health IT's future

Farzad Mostashari, MD, National Coordinator for Health IT, clued the nation into five health IT trends expected to take off as healthcare reform progresses and predicted that 2012 is the year that health IT “truly comes of age.”

The Five trends Mostashari mentions in this article are:

1) Meaningful Use

2) Health Information Exchange (HIE)

3) Health IT and Payment Reform

4) e-Health

5) Innovation

Kinect and Medical Imaging

This is the first time that I really see some kind of workflow using gesture based interfaces. Most only interact with already selected data, here the selection of the data is also included.


Josh Wall from the InfoStrat Adavanced Technology Group demos a medical imaging application that uses the InfoStrat Motion Framework

Gesture Interface using Kinect for Medical Imaging Visualization in Surgeries

This work was developed in the Renato Archer Center for Information Technogy - CTI (www.cti.gov.br) in Campinas - SP, Brazil (3D Technologies Division) published at the 5th International Conference on Advanced Research in Virtual and Rapid Prototyping (VRAP2001).  The system allows the surgeon to control the medical imaging software InVesalius (also developed by CTI) without any physical contact, just by hand gestures. The system uses the OpenNI/NITE framework and is cross-platform (Windows/Linux).  Invesalius website: http://svn.softwarepublico.gov.br/trac/invesalius

HIMSS: Solve your PACS problems with a vendor-neutral archive

Implementation of a vendor-neutral archive (VNA) solves most of the problems associated with PACS, can save money over the long term and can prepare an enterprise to participate in a health information exchange (HIE), according to Michael J. Gray of Gray Consulting who presented during a webinar on Jan. 26 hosted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and GNAX Health.

HIMSS: Solve your PACS problems with a vendor-neutral archive

DICOM app enables image-sharing on Windows Phone 7

My Medical Images, a newly-released DICOM viewer application (app) from Peridot Technologies, allows users to browse, load and share medical images from their Microsoft HealthVault accounts with friends, family or physicians

DICOM app enables image-sharing on Windows Phone 7

Touch screen developments at CES 2012

Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel talks about why they've switched to Gorilla Glass for their 84-inch touch screen, and why there are so many different multitouch booths at CES 2012.
Look at about 5.15 for a medical demonstration. He's talking about an MRI viewer there while he's showing CT but who cares.

Is the Keyboard Going the Way of the Typewriter?

Interesting IEEE Spectrum podcast including the written text on the topic of new ways to interact with computers without using keyboard and/or mouse. It includes an overview of different new techniques as shown at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas. Click here to read it or listen to it.

One interesting development is a fully eye tracking operated game as shown by the movie below on youtube.

Registration of heartbeat and location of elderly people

A Dutch development involves the use of smartphones and a heart beat sensor to register the heartbeat of elderly people. Partner or children of the subject will automatically get a notification when there is a problem with the subject and can see on their phone what the problem is, where the subject is located and what the shortest route to the subject is from the current position. A great development that could be a good solution for cardiac patients. The youtube movie below gives a short introduction in Dutch, the website is also only in Dutch.

Students Bring Health Care to Underserved Patients - IEEE - The Institute

In remote areas, access to a medical specialist usually means waiting months for an appointment and traveling hundreds of kilometers. For example, in northern Brazil, the country’s least inhabited area, a sick person on Marajó Island must travel anywhere from 12 to 24 hours by boat to Belém, the capital of Pará State, to find the nearest hospital. Regular checkups are practically impossible.

The problem can be especially acute for an expectant mother, who should get four periodic ultrasounds to determine the health of her fetus during her pregnancy, according to the World Health Organization.

A group of IEEE student members from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, developed a telemedicine system that can help. With the system, which is outfitted with a video camera and microphone, physicians at remote health centers perform examinations that are guided by specialists at distant hospitals. The specialists analyze the results—in real-time—as video and audio of the procedure is sent using a broadband-over-power-line (BPL), satellite, or Internet connection.

Students Bring Health Care to Underserved Patients - IEEE - The Institute

There's an App for That... And the FDA Is Figuring Out How to Regulate It

This past September, the FDA held a public workshop to discuss its proposed approach to the oversight of mobile medical applications. The workshop allowed attendees to provide input regarding the agency’s draft guidance statement before it issues a final statement. Representatives from several physician specialties took part.

There's an App for That... And the FDA Is Figuring Out How to Regulate It

Survey: Majority of CIOs feel positively about HIEs

Healthcare consulting firm Beacon Partners surveyed more than 200 healthcare executives to determine the value of and interest in health information exchanges (HIEs). Despite concerns, the survey concluded that there was an overall positive opinion regarding the benefits of HIEs with 70 percent of executives reporting that they felt positively about HIEs.

Survey: Majority of CIOs feel positively about HIEs

RapidPro 2012 - Cheap desktop 3D printing

Open source desktop 3D printers come as cheap as €650,-. For more information on these, check out the FabLab in your region.

 The Ultimaker

Makerbot

Commercial desktop models are also available already starting around €2000,-. Prices like these bring 3 D printing to the customer. This could also mean that in medicine, especially in orthopedics and facial reconstruction, the use of 3D models will catch on once these printers find their way into the hospitals and universities. Another good example would be to use the models in medical education. Limitation of the cheaper systems could be their limited size which limits the size of the model to about 20 centimeter cubic.

RapidPro 2012 - The role of RM processes in 'digital dentistry'

A presentation by dr. Martin Klare of Dreve ProDiMed GmbH on the use of rapid manufacturing in dentistry. Based on the digital imaging data they design individualized models. Ceramic substructures and/or dental models are reconstructed based on these computerized models. This required development of specialized software to construct these models and to simulate procedures using the computer based on the scanned data. As an example this allows virtual design of dental models based on the digital data, and 3D reconstruction of dental implant models. Results are then used for the rapid manufacturing using dedicated, high precision, dental rapid manufacturing printers.
The software development for the modeling and planning is still very much work in progress and has to be developed further.

RapidPro 2012 - Patient specific implants produced with Additive Manufacturing Technology based on CT

Great presentation by Maikel Beerens from Xilloc Medical B.V. On patient specific implants produced with Additive Manufacturing Technology. They are a Dutch company that makes specially designed implants that are patient specific based on the CT dataset obtained from the patient. They are working on an online order system for the physician to easily construct and order the implants required. He really showed the direct application of additive manufacturing to build both the anatomical models of the patient and the actual implants based on convincing patient cases where the patient really had a large benefit from these implants. They use a hydroxy appetite coating on the implants to increase ingrowth of soft tissue.
It is difficult to get this technique accepted in medicine, but the cost reductions are significant.

RapidPro 2012 - Additive Manufacturing for Dummies

AM - Additive Manufacturing.
Today I went to RapidPro 2012, a conference on rapid prototyping. In medicine this could be beneficial not only for modelling (where it is already used to model bone structures and skulls for preparation of interventions) but also for the, relatively cheap, construction of phantoms.
A presentation by Benjamin Denayer on 'additive manufacturing for dummies' showed that multiple techniques are now available to construct objects using additive manufacturing. They range in the way the model is built and the materials that are used. Also the resolution of the model varies with the different methods, up to 0.02 mm. When we would like to construct phantoms for CT or MR scanning the materials used to build the model are extremely important since they should have material properties that relate to the tissue we want to mimic.
Another challenge is that all systems are relying on CAD (Computer Aided Design) software data resulting in an STL file and not able to directly import DICOM data. The STL format contains a triangulation of the dataset resulting in a surface model of a certain resolution which can be used for the modeling.
Upcoming are the DIY systems that are cheap, open source, and easy to use.

CAMP: Advanced Medical Imaging and Visualization Technology

Check out his movie on youtube. It shows some of the things they do at campTUM. The neat stuff is at the end where they show some augmented reality examples. Especially the one with the girl with her skull CT projected onto her face using augmented reality is fantastic. This could really work in medical practice.

ECRI report 'Social Media in Healthcare'

More than 1,000 hospitals have embraced online social networking. It’s as much for them as for the 4,700 or so that have avoided the resource that ECRI Institute has released a new risk analysis, "Social Media in Healthcare," and made it available for free downloading.

The implication: Adopters need to be aware of the risks they face while abstainers should consider the benefits they’re missing out on.

Check HealthImaging.com website for an article on this issue

To get access to the report you need to fill out the form here.

AMA launches health IT tutorials for physicians

The American Medical Association (AMA) has released three online video tutorials, the first of a series, to help physician practices through health IT implementation processes. The first three videos focus on developing efficient workflows for e-prescribing, pre-visit planning and point-of-care documentation.

AMA launches health IT tutorials for physicians

MAR: Easy Visualization In-Situ

Fantastic, the future in the doctor's office

AJR: Quality control cuts 3D post-processing errors, preserves productivity

Because it is highly operator dependent, 3D post-processing of volumetric patient data can have inconsistent quality depending on the experience of the technologist. Quality control (QC) programs, however, can help reduce errors without negatively impacting productivity, according to a study in the January issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

AJR: Quality control cuts 3D post-processing errors, preserves productivity

Human brain functional MRI and DTI visualization with virtual reality

Interesting paper on human brain functional MRI and DTI visualization using a virtual reality setup. The virtual reality setup consists of a cave with projection on one wall and the floor.The system included 7'6"x10' screens, using passive projection and infitec glasses for stereoscopic 3-D effect. The system also utilized an Intersense IS-900 6-DOF tracking system with head-tracker and wand.

The authors conclude that the application will have potential applications in basic research, education, and surgical planning. Continued development is needed to implement the tensor visualization, 3D stereoscopy and interactive visualization.

French are trying to catchup in PACS by regional cloud-based PACS introduction

Ministère en charge de la santé (the French Ministry of Health) is to deliver cloud-based PACS and archive services to the Île de France, the country’s most populous region.

In total, 30 hospitals are within the scope of this first project phase, beginning with pilot provider Hôspital Simone Veil.

Read more.

Thermodock - measure temperature using your iPhone

The iPhone as a medical device? Just add a small attachment and the handset becomes a noncontact thermometer. The iPhone add-on was one of dozens of gadgets exhibited at the Medica World Forum for Medicine in Düsseldorf, Germany, in November.

Medical offices will spend thousands on iPads and other tablets

Seems that the mobile technology is finally really getting accepted. At least according to this research review I found at DOTmed.com.

They state that many medical and dental offices plan to spend thousands of dollars buying tablet computers like the iPad in 2012, as the technology continues to shake up health care.

The finding comes from a new survey on technology-purchasing trends of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The survey, The NPD Group's third quarter SMB Technology Report, also found that three-quarters of the practices polled said they're in the market to buy.

Read more by following this link:

DOTmed.com - Survey: Medical offices will spend thousands on iPads, other tablets, next year

Nuance launches mobile voice development challenge

Nuance launches mobile voice development challenge