Cedars-Sinai Imaging's 16th Anniversary

Barry D. Pressman, MD, FACR Chairman, S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center

Since the beginning of Cedars-Sinai Imaging 16 years ago today, Lynne Roy and I have had the privilege of serving the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center community as Director and Chairman of the Imaging Department respectively.

Much has happened along the way, not least of which has been the vision, creation, and growth of the S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center, a premier inpatient and outpatient facility of which we are all very proud. The primary focus of CSI has been to remain state-of-the-art in our imaging equipment as well as our imaging physician expertise, while constantly striving to improve the service we offer our patients and you, their physicians.

Some highlights of the last 16 years include: the tripling of the annual volume of Imaging studies to 450,000; the implementation of PACS including images on Web/VS, streamlining image distribution; and, adding many new Imaging physicians so that every subspecialty in Imaging has been brought under the direction of fellowship-trained Imaging subspecialists, working with highly trained technologists and a dedicated staff of Imaging specialist nurses.

We can assure you that we will continue our quest to improve the care to your patients, and the service to you and your staff. Some of our recent accomplishments in this regard are discussed in this issue of "Eye on Imaging" which celebrates our 16th anniversary.

Case of the Month

Submitted by Brian Tzung, MD and Marcel Maya, MD.

History: 9-year-old male presents with otalgia, fever, neck pain, and stiffness for one week.

For additional images and discussion, visit our Case of the Month for January. February's Case coming soon.

Turn Around Time

Lynne Roy, MS, CNMT, MBA, MHA
Director, S. Mark Taper Foundation
Imaging Center

We value care and efficiency in the acquisition and delivery of our images, and I am pleased to report that in our efforts to decrease turnaround time (TAT), averages have come down.

We have been maintaining the gain we have made in overall TAT, and are now targeting specific areas, such as STAT chest x-ray cases. In this way, we are able to focus on delays occurring in specific patient populations, their causes and work on improving them.

In November, in collaboration with the ED, we initiated the use of a web based tool that enables disparate geographic locations to improve communication, so that patient care is more efficient and effective. We are exploring the feasibility of this application in the OR.

Cardiac PET with Rubidium

The S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center is privileged to be the recipient of a donation of the best rubidium PET/CT available to date. With this new scanner, we are routinely offering state-of-the-art rubidium PET/CT to patients at Cedars-Sinai.

The advanced camera on our rubidium PET/CT records approximately one-hundred times more of the radioactivity emitted from the patient than a conventional SPECT camera. This, combined with the higher available spatial resolution, translates into higher-quality images obtained in a fraction of the time required for other nuclear cameras. This means that a PET/CT can be performed in a much shorter period of time, and with a considerably-lower radiation dose than with SPECT. The combination of the rubidium PET with a 64-slice CT also provides routine, accurate spatial correction.

As an added benefit, we also perform coronary calcium scanning as part of the rubidium PET/CT exam in all patients with suspected disease.

Especially for the following groups, this test may be superior to SPECT:

Obese patients
Larger-breasted women
Patients who are under pharmacological stress
Patients with equivocal or mildly abnormal stress tests

Visit our website:
http://www.csmc.edu/imaging-md

Wednesday's Grand Rounds:

Daniel S. Berman, MD, FACC
S. Mark Taper Foundation
Imaging Center
presents:

"Coronary CTA and
Myocardial Perfusion PET:
A New Frontier at CSMC"

Wednesday, January 23, 12 Noon
Harvey Morse Conference Center

Topics:

To know which patients are appropriate for referral to coronary CTA.
To know which patients are appropriate for referral to myocardial perfusion imaging.
To understand the advantages of myocardial perfusion PET over SPECT.
To know the specific patient groups in whom the advantages of PET are particularly important.

Update:

PACS in the OR

A periodic update regarding the progress in implementing digital-image viewing in the OR

The roll-out of PACs viewing in the 5th floor OR has been successful. We are now moving ahead with the implementation of digital-image viewing on the other surgical floors.

Phases:

Deployment of back-up PACS workstations in physician lounges:

OR-compatible workstations are now available on surgical floors 8, 7, 6 and 3 to view both CDs and PACs images via Web/VS. These workstations are located in the physician lounges on each of these floors. Laminated instruction cards are posted next to each workstation.
8th floor ORs:

Implementation of digital-image viewing in all 8th floor surgical suites will occur mid-February, 2008.
Future OR deployments:

The other surgical floors will follow in a timely manner.
Listening to your feedback:

In response to comments about images prematurely timing-out: We have completely removed the screen saver and increased the login time to four hours, allowing the images to remain displayed longer without interruption.
Physician training:

If you would like further PACs training, please contact:

Mischa Harris Assistant Manager of Imaging Information and Logistics, at 3-4440.

We also have a Web/VS user's guide available on the imaging website.