- Email: [email protected]
Letter from the editors
Seminars in Nuclear Medicine VOL XX, NO 3
JULY
1990
Letter From the Editors HIS ISSUE of Seminars is somewhat unique. Although we have devoted issues to data processing and to instrumentation development, this is the first issue devoted to the new technology of networking. Dr Kolodny and his colleagues have done a magnificent job in assembling a broad and detailed overview of the nuclear medicine department of the future, which in fact is already upon us. With the incredible pressures placed on nuclear medicine and medicine in general by government regulatory and reimbursement agencies, efficiency of operation and communication is urgent. Because of its relatively small size in most hospitals, a simple, remote means of communicating is particularly important to the nuclear medicine department, where the ability to assign personnel to different locations is limited or impossible. Nighttime coverage can become an overwhelming burden in a small department, a burden that can be made not only tolerable but completely acceptable by the use of remote terminals of the type that Dr Cohen and his colleagues describe in their experience with an all-digital nuclear medicine department. There is considerable overlap in each of these articles and yet each is different. The overlap reflects the common goal of the authors to develop for their institutions and their departments of nuclear medicine an efficient data management and retrieval system. The differences relate to the manner in which each of the institutions achieves the modifications of approach needed to implement the goal of the all-digital department. It is time that any nuclear medicine physician who has more than two or three cameras and a significant volume of work, begins to think of networking aimed at interrelating the cameras, their data base, and other aspects of the nuclear medicine operation. The problems and needs of
T
Seminars in Nuclear Medicine, Vol XX, No 3 (July), 1990: pp 189-190
each institution will be somewhat different. However, a review of this entire issue should provide invaluable guidance in making the decision of whether or not a nuclear medicine network or an all-digital nuclear medicine department is the appropriate way to proceed. Having made that decision, the variety of approaches are laid out here in great detail and clarity. The Editors have begun steps in the direction described here at their own institution and we can state emphatically that this issue of Seminars has provided u s with extremely valuable guidance and has helped to modify many of our preconceived notions. As our system is put in place over the next several years, it will reflect the experiences and lessons learned and presented by the authors here. Leonard M. Freeman, MD M. Donald Blaufox, MD, PhD ERRATA
No matter how many times an article is proofread, it seems almost impossible to be sure that no errors will appear. One of the editors, M. Donald Blaufox, MD, PhD, wrote an article for the April 1989 issue of Seminars entitled "CostEffectiveness of Nuclear Medicine Procedures in Renovascular Hypertension." The article went through at least three drafts and was proofread many times during the galley and page proof stages. In spite of all effort, several typographical errors appeared in the tables and are listed below. Fortunately, none of these errors has any impact on the conclusion of the article, and the original material on which they are based contains all of the correct numbers. These errata were discovered when Dr Leonard Rosenthall asked me about certain aspects of the evaluation of renovascular hypertension, and
189
JULY
1990
Letter From the Editors HIS ISSUE of Seminars is somewhat unique. Although we have devoted issues to data processing and to instrumentation development, this is the first issue devoted to the new technology of networking. Dr Kolodny and his colleagues have done a magnificent job in assembling a broad and detailed overview of the nuclear medicine department of the future, which in fact is already upon us. With the incredible pressures placed on nuclear medicine and medicine in general by government regulatory and reimbursement agencies, efficiency of operation and communication is urgent. Because of its relatively small size in most hospitals, a simple, remote means of communicating is particularly important to the nuclear medicine department, where the ability to assign personnel to different locations is limited or impossible. Nighttime coverage can become an overwhelming burden in a small department, a burden that can be made not only tolerable but completely acceptable by the use of remote terminals of the type that Dr Cohen and his colleagues describe in their experience with an all-digital nuclear medicine department. There is considerable overlap in each of these articles and yet each is different. The overlap reflects the common goal of the authors to develop for their institutions and their departments of nuclear medicine an efficient data management and retrieval system. The differences relate to the manner in which each of the institutions achieves the modifications of approach needed to implement the goal of the all-digital department. It is time that any nuclear medicine physician who has more than two or three cameras and a significant volume of work, begins to think of networking aimed at interrelating the cameras, their data base, and other aspects of the nuclear medicine operation. The problems and needs of
T
Seminars in Nuclear Medicine, Vol XX, No 3 (July), 1990: pp 189-190
each institution will be somewhat different. However, a review of this entire issue should provide invaluable guidance in making the decision of whether or not a nuclear medicine network or an all-digital nuclear medicine department is the appropriate way to proceed. Having made that decision, the variety of approaches are laid out here in great detail and clarity. The Editors have begun steps in the direction described here at their own institution and we can state emphatically that this issue of Seminars has provided u s with extremely valuable guidance and has helped to modify many of our preconceived notions. As our system is put in place over the next several years, it will reflect the experiences and lessons learned and presented by the authors here. Leonard M. Freeman, MD M. Donald Blaufox, MD, PhD ERRATA
No matter how many times an article is proofread, it seems almost impossible to be sure that no errors will appear. One of the editors, M. Donald Blaufox, MD, PhD, wrote an article for the April 1989 issue of Seminars entitled "CostEffectiveness of Nuclear Medicine Procedures in Renovascular Hypertension." The article went through at least three drafts and was proofread many times during the galley and page proof stages. In spite of all effort, several typographical errors appeared in the tables and are listed below. Fortunately, none of these errors has any impact on the conclusion of the article, and the original material on which they are based contains all of the correct numbers. These errata were discovered when Dr Leonard Rosenthall asked me about certain aspects of the evaluation of renovascular hypertension, and
189