Today, we scheduled a morning trip out to Mosoriot, to test the network transfer of our x-ray images. AMPATH has installed a wireless, wide-area-network that allows them to communicate with several of the outlying clinics in real-time.
We couldn't resist checking out the imaging facilities while we were there and found a real gem, a very old Siemens ultrasound machine that was still functional. Having studied a bit of the history of ultrasound in order to understand physics it was really cool to get to see one of these in action.
You can see the old-school 5-inch monochrome CRT that displayed a flickering image. It would have been super hard to see what you were doing for a biopsy!
After looking over the imaging facilities we went over to the data room, and clicked the laptop for our X-ray machine into the network. A few clicks and we were connected and ready to test. I got out my iphone stopwatch, and 11 seconds later we had uploaded our first X-ray remotely. I was shocked, and really excited. I expected a few glitches, but things went smoothly. It was only a test, and of course things are different in production, but it's a great start.
