The need to train our future doctors, radiologists, and other members of professional healthcare staff, is invariably certain. However, when it comes to using a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) for education purposes, that may encompass many sub-scenarios, concerns, challenges, and methods to overcome them.
Educational institutions and healthcare organizations need to provide trainees with realistic imaging cases and professional tools, while ensuring that sensitive patient information is properly protected. At the same time, instructors may need to demonstrate cases, share findings, create exercises, and coordinate training sessions across multiple users and locations.
PACScenter, BMD Software’s PACS platform, is able to provide a set of capabilities that can support medical imaging education, radiology training, and research workflows.
Study deidentification
Taking studies from a clinical archive and using them for educational purposes without considering the sensitive information they contain would constitute a severe process flaw. Safeguarding patient privacy is critical to maintaining data protection guarantees for patients, healthcare providers, and the public in general. Before clinical imaging studies can be incorporated into an academic or research environment, appropriate de-identification procedures are therefore essential.
PACScenter supports transformations which are essential to the preparation of studies for an academic environment:
- De-identification of DICOM metadata in compliance with the Basic Application Level Confidentiality Profile as per the DICOM standard (PS3.15);
- Customizable anonymization profiles, enabling administrators to create any extended anonymization rule set of their choosing;
- Cleaning of sensitive information burned into pixel data, through the use of automated image deidentification services with a plug-in framework, or pre-recorded mask regions. This is particularly useful for ultrasound scans, which may contain patient or healthcare facility information directly within the image, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Fig. 1 – Example of an ultrasound scan with sensitive header information removed through automatic image de-identification, presented in the PACScenter viewer.
Annotations for teaching and assessment
Annotations play an important role in medical imaging education. Instructors can use them to highlight findings, demonstrate measurements, and create exercises. PACScenter provides a wide range of annotation tools, such as line-based measurements, rectangles, circles, and 3D annotations (spheres).
While these annotations may be inserted by the user, they can also be created automatically or semi-automatically through the integration of AI Models. For example, PACScenter can integrate with MONAI Label, supporting workflows in which AI-assisted annotation becomes part of the medical imaging environment.
Once created, PACScenter allows instructors to share annotations with controlled access. This enables instructors to create interactive online exercises for trainees. Trainees can identify findings and submit their answers before viewing the instructor’s solution. This makes PACScenter suitable not only for medical image viewing, but also for interactive case-based learning and assessment.
Collaborative Medical Imaging training with shared hanging protocols
Remote teaching can also benefit from synchronised image viewing. A medical imaging platform can share the image arrangement, known as a hanging protocol, with multiple users. This allows attendees to follow the same image arrangement and workflow as the lecturer while retaining access to the features of a professional medical imaging viewer.
Such capabilities can support different teaching scenarios, including:
- Live radiology lectures;
- Remote and hybrid training sessions;
- Case-based discussions;
- Demonstrations of medical imaging workflows;
- Collaborative review of DICOM studies.
Whether you are a university, medical school, hospital, radiology department, research center, or healthcare training organization, PACScenter can provide a foundation for medical imaging education and training.
Does your company or institution provide medical imaging training or lectures? Reach out at info@bmd-software.com if you are interested in a revamp of your procedures.