DOHA: Clinical image sharing promises a future of predictive and personalised health care, according to an expert. E-health, one of the most popular trends in the health care sector worldwide, cannot be complete without image sharing, says Dharmendra Ghai (pictured), clinical IT project manager and specialist in imaging informatics at the Health Information Systems Department, Hamad Medical Corporation.
Clinical imaging is mainly understood as radiology, which is more anatomical imaging, but the full spectrum of clinical imaging covers functional imaging, structural imaging, dynamic imaging and photo imaging, which are carried out by various departments such as Bronchoscopy, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Pathology and Ophthalmology.
"Clinical imaging is the fundamental and non-negotiable pillar of Electronic Medical Records and currently clinical imaging is primarily used for symptomatic diagnosis and treatment," he told The Peninsula.
In future, the completion of the Human Genome Project will help predict and prevent illness and provide personalised care and reduce the overall burden on health care infrastructure. "The present health care system treats the symptoms rather than the disease. With research, cellular and molecular imaging can help find diseases before the anatomical or physical symptoms are seen. The biological signals can be studied, looked into at the base and cured much easily long before the symptoms appear. There are lots of futuristic promises with imaging, however, all these cannot be handled if we have basic problems with the current imaging set-up."
With the above types of imaging facilitated by information technology, it is possible not only to improve patient care but also to reduce the time for taking new drugs from the clinical trial stage to the patient's bedside and also to monitor and image the metabolic response of genes and cells to medication and treatment. "Image sharing across countries will ensure a huge database for research," Ghai said.
The health sector in the GCC region is shifting towards e-health. "When introducing these technology, the countries should know all aspects of it. For sharing images, compatible software should be available. The authorities should also check if facilities are available to send a huge bulk of images over the shared network as a single CT scan will be 200 gigabytes. The GCC countries should not depend on technological solutions as a fix but understand their functional, technical and social priorities and find local solutions for global problems."
"The GCC countries have some of the world's largest floating populations. The countries could form a GCC-level forum for designing shared imaging strategies to assist a translational research agenda and reduce the operational cost of providing care for the floating population within the GCC," he said.
By Huda N V
© The Peninsula 2009
