Type:
Educational Exhibit
Keywords:
Computer applications, PACS, Education, Computer Applications-General, eLearning, Education and training
Authors:
S. Ibáñez Caturla1, A. F. Jiménez Sánchez1, A. Castillo García1, G. CARBONELL LOPEZ DEL CASTILLO1, J. F. Martínez Martínez1, E. Lopez Banet2, I. Sánchez-Serrano1, D. Paez1, D. Abellán Rivero2; 1Murcia/ES, 2El Palmar-Murcia/ES
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2018/C-2964
Background
Radiology departments are managing large amounts of information daily; how it is stored constitutes an important task,
as information needs to be retrieved both easily and in a powerful way.
Organizing and storing data is important as it can be used for several purposes:
- Personal storage: as your own file case,
to save interesting or difficult cases.
- Teaching and learning: we can use these files to build a presentation or a lecture easily,
or for clinical daily sessions.
- Follow up: we can use it to keep track of patients (eg: confirm a diagnosis after surgery).
- Research and publishing: same as above,
use it to retrieve cases easily,
and also store them anonymized for clinical trials.
Several approaches have been proposed to organize data (written text,
Excel spreadsheets,
Access databases,
Word files,
online resources...),
but a standard system is needed to improve its usefulness and make information widely available.
Fig. 1
The methods above mentioned all have advantages but also disadvantages,
none of them is perfect:
- Not automatic (we have to write record number by ourselves): Ej: all of them
- Not images (we just can save record number to look for the file later on a pacs): eg Excel/Access
- Not indexed (we can look for them but can’t tag them for pathology).
Eg: Excel,
we can search “carcinoma” but not “abdomen – liver – hepatic” unless you have tags,
too much effort.
Of course what we all want is having a system that does have all the advantages but no inconvenients.
For example,
a list of requisites for a good storing system would be:
- It’s easy to include cases,
as we just have to send them from our PACS.
- Independent from RIS-PACS,
no it’s not subject to updates or change of vendors,
no losing of data,
easier to adminístrate.
- Network accesible,
we can search cases from any computer inside our department-hospital or even make it accesible worldwide.
- Customizable: anyone can use it as for his needs.
Fig. 2: Why using a teaching file system
For that,
using a teaching file system helps to:
- Keep everything for everyone in the same place.
- Give a higher level of security,
as no record numbers are going to leave the hospital,
no files will be lost.
It’s anonymized,
with daily back-up and storage-expandable according to our needs.
- All with low cost: we can build one with just and old computer (no need to expend money on more equipment).