The objective of the TeleRadiology project is to build medical applications using a new high speed network, multimedia and medical images. Additional purposes are to apply the multimedia technology of EE to the TeleRadiology problems of Radiology; to build a workstation to increase productivity of radiologists by applying new multimedia technology with ATM and reduce the cost of radiology image management at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center (CPMC); and to obtain external funding from NIH, NSF and foundations to improve the technology and infrastructure of the University and CPMC for future work. Resources committed include multimedia technology from EE, an EE graduate student to develop software, TeleRadiology technology from Radiology, a radiologist to test the user interface, and a faculty member from each department. The first step is the construction of a TeleRadiology system based on multimedia technology using a high speed network. The multimedia technology will come from electrical engineering, radiology images from radiology and the high speed network is being built with funding from the Vice Provost. After a successful demonstration, this concept will be extended to address issues related to telemedicine, electronic medical textbooks, computerized hospitals, and PACS. Other issues to be researched include automatic analysis of tag patterns and their 3D motions.

Status and Accomplishments

FY 1995: The HTS Coil project began in June, 1995. A HTS sodium coil, a cryostat and other parts have been designed and manufactured. The coil project has been a great success. The coil was used to measure sodium in testing mode in the 3-Tesla System. This part of the project was completed early and the first images are now available. Two abstracts from the work were reported to professional meetings. Designs for animal experiments have commenced in order to study clinical problems related to tumor and stroke. DuPont has provided support for the project. Proposals were submitted to the National Institutes of Health (Research Grant R01 $1,143,029) and the National Science Foundation (Advanced Magnetic Imaging Technology for Biomedical Engineering Research and Education $330,000, FY 1997-FY 2001). Both proposals were awarded.

In the TeleRadiology Project, the following has been achieved: Hardware has been selected and purchased; the medical image input method has been defined; and a user interface has been designed to support both video-conferencing and high resolution radiology images. In addition, a user interface is under construction that is based on the public domain program network video (NV), with support for ATM and higher video quality display as well as better audio quality. This interface will support multiple cursors and regions of interests. A student has been selected to assist with the imaging component of the project, and progress has been reported. Another three to six more months of development are necessary before seeking external funds, but a submission to NIH is planned for either June or September of 1996. A proposal was submitted for the Whitaker Foundation’s Special Opportunity Award Program competition in Spring 1996 and $210,000 was awarded. The two MRI projects, along with the Hatch NMR Research Center and medical images courses being developed were the basis for the Whitaker proposal. Industrial collaborations were initiated with DuPont for collaboration on the coil fabrication, and IBM on a joint study agreement, "HTS SQUID Using Ion Implantation Patterning."

FY 1996-1997: The team focused on two research areas. These included advanced MRI probe technology, where they have achieved a ten fold increase in the signal-to-noise ratio for Na MRI at 3T and greatly reduced imaging time in animal experiments by using advanced superconducting receiver coils; and telemedicine, where a prototype has been developed supporting software tools for high-quality ATM-based video conferencing and a whiteboard collaborative environment. It has also been deployed on two workstations in the Radiology Lab and will be further tested with actual users upon completion of the ATM networks at the Health Sciences Campus. The research work on probe technology has led to one published paper and two oral presentations. In addition, a patent was filed in December for a process called Multiple Resonance Superconducting Probe. Research on telemedicine has led to demonstrations, oral presentations and several conference publications, including those in the International Conference on Image Processing and Columbia’s ADVENT Research Workshop 1996.

Project Leaders: Philip O. Alderson, James Picker Professor, Radiology; and Edward S. Yang, Professor, Electrical Engineering