Excerpt from Emergency Medicine Today on 2/7/11:

Los Angeles Times (2/5, Zajac) reported that the FDA on Friday approved “software for viewing images and making medical diagnoses from MRIs and CT, PET and SPECT scans on several of Apple Inc.’s popular hand-held devices.” The agency reviewed “image quality and checked studies with radiologists under variable lighting conditions and determined that the Apple devices running Mobile MIM software offered clear enough images for diagnostic interpretation.” Mobile MIM, made by Cleveland, Ohio-based MIM Software Inc., includes “screen features meant to ensure that a physician can recognize subtle differences in contrast.”

According to the Washington Post (2/4, Stein), the app “is not intended to replace full workstations and is indicated for use only when there is no access to a workstation. … ‘This important mobile technology provides physicians with the ability to immediately view images and make diagnoses without having to be back at the workstation or wait for film,'” said William Maisel, the FDA’s chief scientist and deputy director for science in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health in a statement.

MedPage Today (2/4, Peck) adds that after the radiology images are “compressed for secure network transfer,” they can be viewed on the “iPhone or iPad in a format that ‘allows the physician to measure distance on the image and image intensity values and display measurement lines, annotations and regions of interest.'”

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg News (2/4, Peterson), Mobile MIM is presently available in “more than 30 countries”; and MIM Software said that it “should be available in Apple’s US App Store next week.”

IPad Gaining Support In Medical Community.

American Medical News (2/5) reported that the medical community has embraced the iPad as they move away from paper charts and printed files in the recent shift to store and secure records electronically. Dr. Lianna Lawson, who was given an iPad as part of a trial, said the device takes doctors out of their comfort zone and into the future, because physicians who are “used to paper charts” can get a “similar feeling of having a chart in hand.” Brian Reed, chief marketing officer and vice president of products for BoxTone, said physicians were adopting the iPad because it’s has the perfect combination of “ease of use, size, portability, long-lasting battery power and relatively low cost of adoption.”