HOW-TO Acquire and Secure Medical Images with Mobile Devices
For healthcare providers capturing medical photos on smartphones and tablets, these are the best of times and the worst of times.
Without question, many of today’s mobile devices can take pictures to rival high-end digital SLR cameras in image quality. The capability is demonstrably proving a powerful care aid and care management tool across vast swaths of enterprise imaging, most conspicuously in dermatology, ophthalmology, wound care and reconstructive surgery.
However, such sensitive yet slippery material can easily fall into the hands of people who would scoff at HIPAA privacy rules and may have nefarious intentions. Patients themselves may unwittingly abet such shady characters by, for example, downloading photos from a protected portal only to naively share them over social media.
Caught between legitimate stakeholders on all three sides of this conundrum—patients, clinicians and enterprise IT—what is hospital leadership to do?
Dave Pearson, editor at Radiology Business and Innovate Healthcare, talked to Paul Lipton, product manager and innovation leader for Enterprise Imaging, and Jason Knox, Solutions Manager Enterprise Imaging, both Agfa HealthCare. They have been accompanying leading health organizations in their Enterprise Imaging programs.
In this article they share some specific best practices on how to acquire and secure medical images with mobile devices. They have identified imperatives that deserve emphasis:
- Ensure good governance;
- Hammer this home: An unprotected image shared is potentially a private image stolen;
- Normalize metadata processes with an eye on protecting patients from being identified by distinguishing body features;
- Bear in mind that mobile-acquired medical images immediately become an integral part of the patient’s longitudinal imaging record;
- Count on—and plan for—the continuing growth of virtual care.
Access more HOW-TO articles
This article on medical images with mobile devices is part of the Agfa HealthCare HOW-TO Series – focused on the business, clinical, and operational significance of effective Enterprise Imaging.
Enter a new era of patient centric care. Discover Enterprise Imaging.
Agfa HealthCare’s Enterprise Imaging Platform is a groundbreaking technology designed to put CIOs in control of costs and personnel to catalyze care delivery transformation by providing clinicians with on-demand access of patient-centric image information to support collaboration and diagnostic confidence.