A US company has demonstrated the value of the new Apple iPhone for use by medical imaging professionals.

Heart Imaging Technologies (HeartIT) has taken the imaginative step of announcing that medical images can be viewed on Apple’s new iPhone, stealing a lead on its rivals in the process.

Physicians can simply click on a web link sent via email by one of their colleagues, enter their password, and, for example, instantly view movies of a patient’s beating heart halfway around the world using the new iPhone.

They can even put their colleagues on speakerphone and carry on a medical consultation while simultaneously browsing through the imaging results.

Viewing medical images traditionally requires dedicated workstations costing tens of thousands of dollars, which in turn are connected to proprietary picture archiving communications and storage (PACS) systems costing millions of dollars more.

Despite the news of the innovatory use of the mobile technology a spokesperson for Apple said the company had no plans at present to publicize its value for medical imaging professionals. The Apple website does include case studies of where their Mac computer technology is being used as a workstation for medical imaging, and Osirix software has been developed as a free DICOM/PACS viewer for Mac machines for example.

In order to view medical images, physicians must literally drive or walk to one of these workstations. Recent advances in internet browser technologies and the web sites that utilize their rich features, collectively referred to as 'Web 2.0', are challenging these expensive and cumbersome proprietary approaches.

Medical images displayed in a web browser have traditionally been of lower quality and therefore had limited diagnostic utility. HeartIT claim this technology is the first to provide physicians with the ability to drill-down and view medical images, including movies, on a hand-held device. That said Apple earlier this year publicized how their iPod is facilitating personal and portable medical media at the Society of Thoracic Surgeons 43rd Annual Meeting.

“Patient privacy is obviously a critically-important issue on the internet,” says Brent Reed, HeartIT’s Director of Software Development. “Fortunately, medical privacy concerns can be addressed using the same encryption technologies employed by online banking and credit card transactions.”

Formed in 2000, HeartIT provides web-based medical image management services and computing systems to regional health care systems, large hospitals and private clinics as well as drug and device companies sponsoring multi-center clinical trials.

In another iPhone-for-medical-use related story Life Record recently announced the release of Life Record EMR v3.1.0, a new version of their electronic medical records (EMR) system for Mac OS X. This release adds support for the Apple iPhone, pictured in action below on YouTube:

Among Life Record EMR's features are advanced imaging, prescription tracking, patient interactivity enabling appointment scheduling, enrolling as a new patient and engaging in telemedicine consultation, demographic tracking, and MySQL-based database access.

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