Back from SIIM

Thanks to flight delays, I got back from the meeting about an hour later than scheduled. It seems the more flying I do, the more annoyed at it I get. USAir’s self check-in kiosks never work for me and timing for the flights always seems to leave me with 2 or 3 hour layovers. Maybe it’s just the places I’m going.

Anyway, the meeting was very interesting with a big focus on informatics rather than just PACS and different implementations. There were a few talks about developing radiology ontologies and using them to develop semi-intelligent systems to help with diagnoses. There’s a lot of datamining of radiology reports and journal articles that can be done to help radiologists, which is only just starting to be done at a few places. Sounds like really cool stuff.

A couple of talks about setting up big archive centers that kind of emphasized how far behind the medical field is with respect to technology. Learned about a lot of interesting sounding software that I’m looking forward to trying out at work.

The Rhode Island Convention Center where the meeting was held was a nice facility conveniently located near a bunch of hotels, although could have benefited from better WiFi coverage and more power outlets for us battery-impaired laptop users. There were power bars in the SIIM lounge, but it was too far away from the nearest hotspot to get anything more than a low signal. Maybe I just have a crappy wireless card in my 5150, but it seemed to me that the two WiFi hotspots in the building were pretty localized. If you weren’t in visual range of the hotspot sign, you were pretty much out of luck.


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