Heart Imaging Technologies (HeartIT) announced today that medical images can be viewed on Apple’s new iPhone. Physicians can simply click on a web link sent via email by one of their colleagues, enter their password, and, for example, instantly view movies of a patient’s beating heart halfway around the world. They can even put their colleagues on speakerphone and carry on a medical consultation while simultaneously browsing through the imaging results.
Viewing medical images traditionally requires dedicated workstations costing tens of thousands of dollars, which in turn are connected to proprietary picture archiving communications and storage (PACS) systems costing millions of dollars more. In order to view medical images, physicians must literally drive or walk to one of these workstations. Recent advances in World Wide Web browser technologies and the web sites that utilize their rich features, collectively referred to as Web 2.0, are challenging these expensive and cumbersome proprietary approaches.
Medical images displayed in a web browser have traditionally been of lower quality and therefore had limited diagnostic utility. This technology is the first to provide physicians with the ability to drill-down and view medical images, including movies, on a hand-held device.
“Patient privacy is obviously a critically-important issue on the internet,” said Brent Reed, HeartIT’s Director of Software Development, in the press release. “Fortunately, medical privacy concerns can be addressed using the same encryption technologies employed by online banking and credit card transactions.”
Heart Imaging Technologies’ headquarters are located near North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. Formed in 2000, HeartIT provides web-based medical image management services and computing systems to regional health care systems, large hospitals and private clinics as well as drug and device companies sponsoring multi-center clinical trials. Worldwide, HeartIT’s systems currently provide secure web browser access to over 50 million medical images.
See examples here.
forget this, give me my pron. chicawooooow.
Booyakasha!!!!!!!
Giving you what you needed but did not think you wanted until you had it, and then asked yourself….How did I manage without this?????
Ps MDN I feel a little squashed to the left…now if you scootched a little to your right…….
In other news the iPhone just saved a kid from drowning, cured cancer and played shortstop for my company’s softball team and went 2 for 4 with 3 RBI’s
LMAO, Macromancer.
I’ve said it before, iPhone has Chuck Norris-like powers.
I am wondering, though, if the video is being pushed out with h.264. Man, I’d hate to be a flash-video-only shop right now.
MW: <b>wanted</i> by the Texas Rangers.
1st generation iPhone: Browses diagnostic heart images, conducts medical consultations
2nd generation iPhone: Cures cancer
3rd generation iPhone: Raises the dead
Smells like patent war here: I do not think, that having pic of heart instead of thorax x-ray image on screen gives any novelty. There should be something more than e.g fractal packing of medical pictures etc. in that HeartIT’s system. Why? See below.
Very similar technology were tried out in Finland already almost 10 yrs ago. 2nd generation Nokia Communicator was not having enough good display quality yet, so it was used as modem only. instead 3rd gen Communicators (Nokia 9300i/9500 with Opera browser) were already enoug good. One of the companies (the biggest one) that was involved on developing IPR on mobile medical imaging is owned by GE Health nowadays. In my understanding getting the GE:s mobile medical imaging system to work in any S60 phone needs no or minimal re-coding. That is, it works with Nokia N95 or E90 (Symbian S60 3.1 / Safari), also.
Also Omron has been developing it’s own mobile medical imaging system, so I would not call this as industry first…
Oh Boy, the iPhone just ate my Zune.
The iPhone invented ME.
Hello iPhone… Hey what’s that little hole right there? Wait… Lemme… Oh Yeah… MMMMMM… Uhhuh… Oh God!
The iPhone cures cancer, and gets you off!!!!
Well la-tee-freakin’-da! Look at me, I’m an iPhone—I save lives. What’s that dark spot near your aorta? I can e-mail you a prescription for that, or I can call a doctor for you…
Whatever. My Zune has FM. Does your sissy little life saving iPhone have FM? No? Thought so.
Your potential. Our passion.™
“3rd generation iPhone: Raises the dead”
I’m waiting for that one. Then I’m gonna visit Hendrix’s grave.
Thanks for scootching MDN!
For those of you starved off any interesting news, read this and gloat!!! Poor Zander he probably feels like the prisoner of Zender right now!
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/07/17/motorola-forecast.aspx
FM?
Why would anyone want a Fuckall Modulator?
(Your potential. Our passion.™) Apple’s potential is M$ passion since they seem to be working day & night to crib all of Apple’s innovations. The Bastards!
So, after the initial belly-aching of developers about how “crippled” and “closed” the iPhone is, every day it seems someone is releasing a new application for that device. Heck, it was only released 18 day ago! Remember when Tiger was released with only a few dozen Widgets? This is only the beginning.
Why, oh why, didn’t I buy more AAPL?
Zune = Buster Keaton
I smell a lawsuit coming up in the near future!! The cribing bastards are at it again!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6895588.stm
so do cell phones cause cancer? but the iPhone is the first of it’s kind, to actually reverse the damage? hmmm,nice.
we will introduce an iPhone killer: The “Me too! phone” in November!
And another, but this time not from the cribing bastards!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6898562.stm
Okay, last of these otherwise I will overkill it!
Remember Mr. Balsillie claiming that he did not know what an iphone was?
Well this article reveals that he was lying!
http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/32133
Don’t you just hate it when CEO’s pretend to be cool in the face of an impending juggernaut?
If I had shares in RIM, I would be selling right now!!!
Zune Tang makes a good point…
Yep! One that only Trolls can understand!
@ ChrissyOne
“3rd generation iPhone: Raises the dead”
I’m waiting for that one. Then I’m gonna visit Hendrix’s grave.
lol I’m going to wake up Bon Scot!
“and went 2 for 4 with 3 RBI’s”
Oh come on, only batting 500? It would have to be at least 750. And it pitched a no-hitter to boot!.
LOL. Nice one Macromancer.
You idiots! Don’t you see the importance in this? I see all of you laughing at the news release above. But it’s important for several reasons:
1. You just got in a bad auto accident and have suffered severe head injuries. Your life hangs in the balance. But the neurologist who can make a life-or-death difference on your miserable life is on the golf course. By the time he gets back to look at your MRI, it could be too late. Instead, he could have MRI images forwarded to his iPhone, and on the spot, he could direct treatment that could save you. Consider that. Before the iPhone, there was simply no handheld with the graphics rendering abilities to make this possible.
2. While you didn’t take the news release above seriously, obviously the healthcare industry, which is now the biggest industry in the nation, does. If you wanted a reason for an iPhone to be adopted by corporate IT Nazis, this is a very good one.
Yes, I know. The iPhone might ostensibly be a consumer device. But forward thinking people in healthcare and other industries are quickly embracing what the iPhone can do. Microsoft does not have an answer to this yet. And probably won’t for a while.
If you’re wondering why the iPhone is important, and why it will drive a lot of growth for Apple (are you with me, Apple stockholders?), it’s dull news releases like this that will lead the way.
There. I feel better now.