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Radiologists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston are using a browser-based application to hold virtual meetings and share electronic medical records online. The Radiology Theater, developed by IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), has the potential to change the way radiologists communicate with patients and other health-care professionals, said Francine Jacobson, a thoracic radiologist at the hospital.
“In many ways, it’s better than being in the same room with someone,” said Jacobson. “It does force people to point to what they’re talking about, and you have a record of that.” The web-based application can improve on face-to-face communication by taking an exact record of ancillary information like participants’ discussion, and exactly which parts of an image or a record they were referring to, she explained.
That means when a discussion participant goes to relay information to a third party, he or she will have access to the original material, reducing the likelihood of a communication error.
The application works via any browser and allows sharing of documents stored in disparate formats and databases, according to IBM.
It also allows doctors to talk virtually, face to face, with patients and other health-care professionals -– something that could be of great benefit to radiologists, whose patients often undergo CT scans in remote facilities, Jacobson said. That personalizes the process for patients who might otherwise not get to see who is analyzing their results, and it allows the radiologist to uncover information that might be useful, she said.
In the long run, having a record of all discussions on a patient’s case could prove transformative, she suggested.
“Those permanent things can be an album of the whole history of an illness,” Jacobson said. “That can have ramifications for teaching and maybe some day will change the whole paradigm for an electronic medical record.”
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