New app lets docs use cellphones to examine imaging scans

Thanks to a first-of-its-kind OK by the FDA this month, doctors can use their cellphones to examine imaging scans and even make diagnoses for conditions ranging from heart problems to bleeding in the brain.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials gave clearance on Feb. 4 for a new app that allows results from MRI and similar scans to be shown on Apple iPhones and iPads As of Monday, doctors have been able to acquire the new application, further igniting the already exploding world of telemedicine.

"You can actually diagnose a disease on a mobile device," said Dr. Khan Siddiqui, chair of an information technology committee at the American College of Radiology, a national group of 34,000 radiologists and other health care providers. "At the patients' bedside, they (doctors) can open up the application and not only make a treatment decision but explain to the patient what they can do."

Produced by MIM Software Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio, the app comes with restrictions. Doctors can only use it when they're away from the office and can't get to their own computers and work stations. It is approved for viewing and making diagnoses from many types of scans including magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography or CT and the nuclear medicine test called positron emission tomography or PET.

But the phone apps aren't cleared for other forms of imaging, including X-rays.

Doctors worry about patient privacy in what they call the medical ether of cyberspace, though MIM Software officials offered assurances the images are encrypted and transmitted on tightly secured networks.

Physicians also focus on the ways the technology can improve care.

"I think that's an amazing advance," said Dr. Vishva Dev, a cardiologist who sees conveying information on mobile devices as a way to save lives. He noted that being able to immediately see a CT scan of a stroke patient can change the way doctors respond to the injury.

"The timing window changes the treatment options," he said, suggesting waves of new apps are coming. "I think the evolution is rapid and very soon handheld devices accessing imaging and graphics and other data will almost be routine."

It's already common to transmit images of spine or brain injuries on the Web, allowing radiology specialists on the other side of the country to examine the images. One difference of the new application that concerns radiologist Dr. Irwin Grossman is the size of the screen, resolution and limits on the amount of information doctors will see at one time.

"I don't think I'd be giving a final diagnosis and report from my iPad," said the medical director of Grossman Imaging Centers in Ventura, Calif. He suggested the handheld images may be more valuable in offering a way radiologists away from the office can offer instructions to imaging technologists.

Siddiqui predicted the software could be used mostly to explain a diagnosis to a patient. Often, doctors resort to scribbling a diagram on a piece of paper at a patient's bedside.

"It just enables a lot more communication," he said.

Mark Cain, chief technology officer at MIM Software, said the company also is developing an application that will allow patients to access their own imaging scans. He said the reality of the doctors app is that when physicians don't have access to an MRI, they either bypass it or the patient waits.

(Tom Kisken is a reporter for the Ventura County Star in California