Impact of telematic technologies on image-guided medicine

Biomedical image computing is advancing rapidly as a result of fundamental new developments in many areas of informatics. Enabling technologies, such as digital imaging, multimedia, virtual reality, broadband communications, the World Wide Web, computational intelligence and others are destined to profoundly change medicine. The impact on healthcare is still unimaginable. New imaging tools fundamentally effect the way physicians will carry out their diagnostic and therapeutic activities. Some key telematic technologies which need to be considered when assessing the impact on image guided medicine are: direct digital radiography, special processors for application-specific PCs, flat panel displays, 3D computer graphics technology, and Internet and intranet technologies. Considering that information systems are multi layered (there may be more than 10 hardware and software layers), the relatively low level technologies produce bottom-up ripple effects to the top application level, for example in radiology and surgery or healthcare generally. A few examples are presented.