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ePaper created 2015-01-06, 15:49:55 | version 1.34.00
displays/printers RadBook 2014 145 www.medical.nema.org). Keeping as close as possible to this curve (with the lowest possible (maintenance-) costs) is a key topic to diagnostic monitor IQ. Not just at the moment the monitor is first powered on, but most ideally, for the entire technical lifetime of the monitor. When there is a deviation on this curve, the essential question is: ‘How much is acceptable before we start missing life threatening pathologies?’ Can a (reading- / interventional-) radiologist accept a breast mass or brain tumor not detected because the monitor is off the ideal curve? What if there would be a kind of closed loop process built into the monitor that constantly monitors the monitor and adjusts minute (potential) changes to the JND‘s ’creating’ the GSDF? It would solve a lot: • No more degradation of IQ, without any service needed • Operational costs would be close to zero • It could potentially save lives. Hospitals pay twice At the advent of LCD panel based diagnostic monitors compa- nies started businesses in calibration services in order to check and adjust these monitors to the ideal curve. Up until today this is the case with the majority of monitors. Total Cost of Owner- ship is more and more a spear point from financial departments in healthcare systems. Effectively this means that over the typi- cal economical lifetime expectancy of a monitor (5-7 years) the total costs have doubled. The hospital pays twice. Display trust Looking from a clinical perspective there is yet another inter- esting point: How well can a radiologist trust his monitor in terms of optimal IQ just a day before the calibration service is deployed? The GSDF might be 15% off the optimum. Is this acceptable for the radiologist? We should also bear in mind that the radi- ologist provided his services for patients. They depend on his professionalism. An optimal tool for reading cases is of para- mount importance. What is needed is a monitor that can be trusted in unprecedented IQ over time. Not just on day one, that’s relatively simple. Try to keep it in that quality without any maintenance costs is a complete different ball game. We know that game very well. It’s our pedigree: Optimal IQ from day 1 until the technical end of the monitor. Image quality The second equally important aspect of IQ is ensuring that at any luminance level, the radiologists are assured of maximal 255 (8 bit data word) different levels of grey. The problem here is that it is a pretty complex process for a person to make sure that all these 255 differences are effectively there. On top of that, that the differences remain visible over time and even more complex, with every luminance level. Almost impossible for most humans to get the combination of getting very close to the ideal GSDF curve, making sure the 255 different levels of grey are just recognizable and to top it, at every moment in lifetime of the monitor. This is known to be nearly impossible to accomplish. That is said for a human, not for a computer. The computer beats both humans in speed and accuracy. A good thing we have more than enough of computational power these days to per- form this task with ease. We build one in our monitors. Not to worry about IQ at any time and zero maintenance costs. The kind of simplicity even Da Vinci would agree with, the ultimate sophistication. The Right Choice for Radiologists The Radiologist is a human. He/she is not a machine. We are in continuous contact with radiologists, clinical physicists, IT personnel and financial administrators and know their specif- ic needs quite well. The radiologist’s typical working environ- ment is a controlled room with low and constant (see ACR recommendations) lighting conditions that create best possible reading conditions. These conditions are also catered by the monitor: • No reflective material • No front ‘power-on’ LED shining directly in the eyes of the radiologist • No irritating noise from fans (for active cooling). There is a human behind the monitor. He / she spends about 8+ hours working with it, it better be designed for long term constant use. It’s a Radiologists ´hammer´, not a consumer item like an iPad. Reliable Products for Reliable Specialists Focus on what’s clinically relevant and what not. Dome, The Right Choice, since 1989. When will you find out?