Tele Medicine Companies

Understanding teleradiology

The method involved in sending radiologic images from a fixed source to another with the help of digital or computer based transmissions is called as teleradiology. This process is basically conducted on a standard telephone line or through wide area network and sometimes even through LAN or local area network. In the process of teleradiology the images can be easily sent to another source or hospital throughout the world. The images can be easily captures using a video capture board or frame grabber which can be connected directly to a composite video signal of either the console or the image processor. The images can also be captured digitally just by connecting them directly from modality to the workstation through networks like Ethernet. However another least expensive method in acquiring digital data is by using DICOM file transfer.

Capturing standard radiography images in teleradiology

The standard radiographs are digitized either by a film scanner or by a video camera. The video camera or camera on a stick as it is often called is in fact the primary method for digitizing any standard image to transmit used during the last five years. It is much like a typical camera system that utilizes a light box to illuminate the radiographs along with an extension arm hat holds the camera over the film. It also includes high sensitivity video camera that features zoom lens. Although it is inexpensive, the camera is still a low quality process for image acquisition for teleradiology. However the digitizers and film scanners arrived the teleradiology platform just a few years before. The film scanner include two basic types which are change coupled device (CCD) or digitizers and laser digitizers. It was a long and endless debate over which among them offers superior performance. However the laser digitizers seems perceived to provide better images but CCD digitizers also offer move value for your money. Therefore the CCD technology has considerably improved over the few years and it today there are some high quality digitizers which can produce images nothing different to laser digitizers. However the main difference in the images produced by CCD digitizers and laser digitizers is the captured optical density through the film.

When it comes to transmitting the images there are a few options available. Depending on the economic considerations and data transfer rate needed images could be transmitted either through a common telephone line, coaxial cable, digital phone lines, fiber optic cable, satellite, microwave and T1 telecommunication link. However most of the teleradiology systems today run over normal telephone lines. Fortunately, over the next few years you might even see considerable migration over switched ISDN lines or which can offer higher speed with better line quality compared to normal telephone lines. Some other high speed lines could be SMDS and T1 which can even become more popular with its price drop.

Teleradiology basically refers to radiological images of patients in the form of X-rays, MRIs and CTs which are transferred from one source to another mainly for the purpose of consultation or interpretation. The radiologists are also increasingly a scarce resource where in the imaging procedures are increasing around 15 percent annually against the increase of just 2 percent according to the radiologist population.

Although the images must be always archived as raw data or through lossless data compression where no data can be destroyed there are also software and hardware technologies being used for teleradiology systems. This helps in compressing digital images to make the file size smaller in order to be easily transmitted over the network. Compression of files and images can also be transmitted faster and sent through any common network method used today. 

The process of teleradiology helps in improving patient care by letting the radiologists offer better service without literally having to be at the location where the patient is. This is probably an excellent service when a sub specialists like the neuroradiologist, MRI radiologist, musculoskeletal radiologist or pediatric radiologist is required for patient care as these specialists are normally located only in large metropolitan places working during the day hours. Moreover teleradiology also allows trained specialists to be available throughout the day and anywhere.