Wednesday, February 14, 2007

What Are You Searching For?
Pssst...PACS companies take notice...

It is no secret that we leave a huge trail behind us when we surf the 'net, nor do I hide the fact that I look at that trail when it leads to my blog.

Many of you come straight here, having no doubt enshrined my address on your link bar. Fortunately, new readers are lured here, I mean stumble fortuitously, upon my blog via Google or other searches. I thought you might find it interesting to see what has led others to these pages. So, here are the Googled words or phrases that led here, as gleaned from the last 500 visits:
"access to medicare imaging act"
"bloomberg competitor"
"quality nighthawk" president
2006 rsna siemens leonardo
3d terrarecon
access to medicare imaging act (multiple)
agfa impax (multiple)
agfa impax 4.5
agfa mitra
agfa pacs web1000 update
agfa pacs worklist
alternative murder
american amic people
amic research associates
amicas jp2 convert dicom
an unexpected error has occurred
anyone have any info on ytb
anyone using meditech workstation on linux
aser 2004 survey emergency radiology
audiovox 6600 intermittently crashing
auntminnie sold
autralian 2007 addresses
barry gutwillig
biograph pet
blog pacs
blog vascular ultrasound discussion board
buggy and two pacs
canon "dynamic imaging" pacs
carbonite hipaa
cavernosagram
centricity 3.0
centricity pacs 3.0 demo
centricity web pacs
chain gif
chile pacs 2007 fujifilm
coronary cta credentials physicians
ct armature siemens somatom definition
dalai blog
dalai lama mercury sohard
dalai lama pacs
dalai lama radiology
dalai pacs
dalai refrigerator
deficit reduction act
deficit reduction act diagnostics
deficit reduction act imaging
demo intelerad
demo of centricity pacs
dicom guru
dicom overlay java reader
doctor dalai
doctor dalai blog
doctor dalai impax
doctordalai
dr sam friedman
dra 2005 (multiple)
dra cuts
encompass.net server error
feature fatigue
federal law against self-referral pennsylvania
free efilm unlimited license
fuji pacs negative experiences
fuji pacs unable to view all images
fuji synapse (multiple)
fuji synapse and ruler function
ge pacs server configuration
good it worklist
google auntminnie wet reads
google.com
hormel
how to mass market ytb
imaging and deficit reduction act
imaging software to read ct coronary angiogram
impax 6 (multiple)
impax 6.0 (multiple)
impax agfa
impax agfa screen grabs
impax sucks
impax viewer (multiple)
intelerad
is it illegal to give patients money for referrals?
is ytb a pyramid
isite pacs complaints
isite radiology 3.5 upgrade limitations
isite stentor image format
logmein danger
machine alternative medicine scan
madamme tussaud's
magnifying glass
manogram gun sights
matthew morgan pacs
medicare; medicaid; fraud; examples; cases; self referral
meditech magic antiquated
medview auto logout
merge efilm blog
missing link in the chain
mitra context server
multi level marketing ytb fraud
number of mri's in la
oamri
pacs
pacs blog (multiple)
pacs blogg ge centricity replacements
pacs blogs
pacs centricity
pacs idiots guide
pet scan procedures per capita
philips isite missing images
phillips stentor blog
picom doc scimage
picom manual
picom to dicom conversion
porcine
powerscribe mic
powerscribe microphone
precertification and anti-kickback laws
radiologist blog dictaphone
ramsoft pacs
reimbursement for cardiologist...diac ct angiogram pennsylvania
repeal the dra
scams ytb
scan paper documents into pacs
scimage
sectra pacs problems
self-referral imaging 2007
siemens biograph 16 reconstruction algorithms
siemens pacs problems
siemens syngo pacs issue
smart client agfa pacs
snorkeling shellfish allergy
stamp on envelope idiot
stentor activex control isite
stentor pacs blogs
stentor pacs problems
step shoot rsna 2006
syngo report awful
terarecon
terarecon isite
terarecon precision 670
terarecon voxar comparison
terrarecon
treating pets with a rife machine
victorinox israel
why buy a biograph pet/ct
ytb "like amway"
ytb amway
ytb bad idea
ytb good or bad
ytb pyramid scams
ytb pyramid scheme
ytb pyramid scheme investigation
ytb scam (multiple)
ytb scam or pyramid
ytb scams or problems
ytb sites
ytb travel fraud
ytb travel pyramid scam
ytb travel scam
ytb webinar
ytb, scam

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Lititz, Pennsylvania
Home to Visitor 30,000!


Image Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau


If you were wondering, Lititz is near Lancaster, and from what I gather, it is a very picturesque spot for shopping and sightseeing.
Visitor 30,000 is a regular, stopping by here at least once a week or so. Is there a hospital in Lititz?
If I were to visit, would I get the key to the city? Oh, well....

Sunday, February 04, 2007

"Banned" Budweiser Commercial
...And A Parody

I'm not sure why it's banned, but it appeals to my warped sense of humour.....



Now, just to show that I can take a Jewish joke, here is a Bud parody...

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Spam...A Really Bad Idea That Probably Wouldn't Work
...so forget I mentioned it


I hate spam. No, I haven't tried the Hormel version lately, but I'm referring to the unsolicited e-mail garbage we all receive. I get from 20-30 spam e-mails per day, and that is probably a rather low figure. I dutifully report each and every one to spamcop.net, for all the good that doesn't seem to be doing. Sadly, I keep getting more and more each day anyway. Most of it is now the insidious "image spam", wherein the real spamvertisement is hidden in a GIF file. My filters usually catch the images before they can download, which supposedly tells the spammer that he has hit paydirt with your e-mail account.
No one seems to have a solution to this growing problem. After clearing out the 20th spam message this morning, however, a nasty thought occured to me. This is one of those things where the government has to step in and do something. So far, those efforts have been pretty lame, due mainly to the lobbying efforts of the spammers, and other bottom-feeding scum who hide behind the First Amendment. We The People simply need to convince Congress to put a stop to this scourge. Yes, I realize that much comes from off-shore, but there are certainly ways to block this with government help. I'm at a total loss, however, as to how to get Congress' attention. Now, I would never, ever, think of something like everyone in the country forwarding each and every spam to their Congressman (addresses available at http://www.house.gov or their Senators (http://www.senate.gov) or even the President (http://www.whitehouse.gov). No, I would never suggest such a thing. Certainly our government has more important things to do than deal with something that annoys just about every US citizen, and has the potential to shut down Internet commerce.
Forget I even mentioned it.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Show Me Your Worklist!

Remember the DI ad from a few months back? My friend at Dynamic just sent me this image to remind me that there are indeed other companies out there using color worklists:





This one happens to be from Thinking Systems. I had already heard about this one from RamSoft:



Even ScImage has a colorful worklist, based on this image from an ad about their version 3.0:


(I've promised the folks at ScImage to be nice and not comment on their newer products that I haven't seen; I present this image simply to show the pretty colors.)

I am still quite happy with the way Amicas implements colors in their RealTime Worklist:




Compare that to the Impax 6.0 worklist which is not terribly colorful at all:



Why am I so hung up on colors? It's simple, really. Colors give a quick, at-a-glance snapshot of what is happening out there on my PACS. What do I need to read, what is being read, etc. Yes, the text-based approaches can do this, and give all sorts of other information, but to use them requires more, well, thinking. I have a theory that colors stimulate the more primitive parts of the brain, and bypass the cortex, going straight to the limbic system. Thus, I can feel primitive rage when a red ER study comes up, and wallow in the relief of an all-green screen, indicating that everything has been read, transcribed and finalized.

How much flexibility should we have in a worklist? Good question. With Impax 6.x, we used to be able to tailor our own, until IT took that privilege away, ostensibly for our own good. We now have to submit ideas for worklists that are approved by committee. To be fair, only administrators can create and manage worklists on Amicas. Don't even ask about Centricity.

To prepare for this post, I went trolling through the net looking for screenshots of PACS worklists. It turns out that such things are much harder to find than porn. So, I'll put out the call: Send me a screenshot of your worklist! Anonymize it as necessary, and then send it to: doctordalai**AT**gmail.com. (You wise PACS people know what to do with the **AT**, I'm sure.) I'll post them and we can have a good time comparing them. Nothing like a little audience participation, eh?

Addendum

Well, here's our first entry...this is the IntegradWeb worklist from Dynamic Imaging, courtesy of my friend Brad. Discussion to follow as more of these trickle in.