Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Doctors get messaging to save time

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 18:59:46 -0400

Wales

Doctors get messaging to save time
Jun 18 2003
by Tomos Livingstone, The Western Mail

DOCTORS at a Welsh hospital are using picture messaging
technology to slash the time it takes to make a diagnosis.

Consultants at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant
have started using their mobile phones to send X-rays to
colleagues around the country when they need an instant
second opinion.

The new technology replaces the old option of sending a telex,
or even hiring a taxi to ferry X-rays up and down the
motorway, and a hand-held phone could soon be found in
every doctor's white coat pocket.

Picture phones are slowly becoming more popular in the UK,
and last week saw third-generation mobile phones - which can
send and receive video clips - go on sale in Wales for the first
time.

Jonathan P Davies, an orthopaedic consultant at the Royal
Glamorgan hospital, said a team of colleagues had simply
heard of the new phones and wondered if they could have a
medical use.

"We came across picture messaging phones, just like
everybody else is at the moment," he said yesterday. "And we
just wondered whether it would be any good for transmitting
X-rays."

Several (conventional) phone calls to mobile phone operators
later, the medics had a deal with Vodafone, who agreed to
lend them a set of 60 phones for a trial period.

"We tested the phones, with one doctor to take photos with
the phone, and transmitted them to another doctor 'blind', so
he hadn't seen them before.

"We were told we wouldn't be able to see them clearly, and
they are very small images."

But the trials were a success, and although they can't pick up a
hairline fracture, they can give enough information for an
expert to give a view on a particular fracture.

Mr Davies said having photographic evidence made discussing
cases with colleagues who could be miles away far easier than
explaining a case over the phone.

"If you've got someone who hasn't seen a car before and
you're trying to describe what a Jaguar looks like, you'd say,
it's got a long body, big wheels - it's difficult," he says.

"If you've got a picture they can recognise it straight away."

Picture messaging could be about to change the way the
doctors operate.

"Normally what we do is describe X-rays over the phone or
send them by telex - we still do that," says Mr Davies.

"Large hospitals have a telex system - Cardiff and Newport
have them - but of course you have to get into X-ray [the
department] to do that.

"Potentially, it can now be sent to anyone.

"Fractures are complex and you have sub-specialities.
Someone in Swansea, for example, might be an expert in
complex fractures of the ankle.

"Rather than spend a whole afternoon getting an X-ray to him
we send the picture and say, 'Bob, what do you think?'"

Although the technology lends itself readily to photographs of
X-rays, it could also be used for getting second opinions for
wounds or skin conditions.

But technology hasn't quite caught up with abdominal X-rays
yet.

Cynics may be pointing out that, if they started waving a
mobile phone around their local hospital, staff would be far
from happy.

But the doctors have made inquiries and have been assured
using the phones is safe, as long as they are safely away from
any critical machinery.

But the day when doctors put away the stethoscope and the
clipboard and just carry a third-generation mobile phone aren't
quite with us yet.

"It doesn't replace anything we would normally do, it's not a
shortcut," says Mr Davies. "It's just an extra thing, it's a bit
more, hopefully."

Gareth Dupre, of Cardiff texting firm thinkSMS.co.uk, said the
story was an example of the way messaging systems were
now prevalent in all walks of life.

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/content_objectid=13081003_method=full_siteid=50082_headline=-Picture-messaging-service-helping-to-get-instant--second-opinion-for-doctors-name_page.html

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