The value of one’s life

A doctor giving an interview just outside the hospital where she works is worried. Will we be able to care for everyone?, she asks. We will have to make choices, some heart-wrenching choices, she adds. Who shall receive care? Which patients should be prioritized? That question has been answered since we have given priority of care to patients suffering from Covid-19 over so many other ill people. A forced choice as we faced the unknown, but would have it been better to prioritize the people who were ill instead of a sickness? The reality is that all types of care were affected and that the consequences of that choice remain unknown.

How far will fear drive us?

We often say that fear marks the beginning of wisdom. Under other circumstances, fear can also be the result of ignorance, of disengagement and sometimes of closed mindedness. Like any kind of upheaval or event of major importance, the COVID-19 pandemic will have enfeebled our convictions. From this day forward, humans have a perception of risk and are aware of the limits of their own existence.

What Is the Greatest Threat We Face?

Regardless of global warming sceptics, planet Earth is talking to us and what she has to say is not at all reassuring. Slowly, and yet still too rapidly, the planet is suffocating under the pressure of human activity. Is the glass full? No. The pandemic has given us an eye-opening look on a new threat: viruses can mute faster than the vaccines produced to fight them. In a world where its end has been prophesied since the beginning of time, how are we to survive if not together by working hand in hand on problems that unite us.

Human resources: Where is the problem?

Healthcare workers are exhausted. The pandemic, which continues to claim victims, is overwhelmingly pressuring the health system and the lack of personnel for primary care is complicating the situation considerably. As it is the case in several other sectors of activity, the field of healthcare has experienced labour shortages for many years now. But what do we really mean by labour shortage? Above all, how do we prevent other sectors of reaching the limits of their human capacity?

COVID-19 – We must act now

Doctors from the CIUSSS[1] serving the Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean region are sounding the alarm. In an opinion letter published November 21st in the newspaper Le Quotidien, the doctors who sit on the CIUSSS’s coordinating committee asked for the public’s collaboration with regard to following the Public Health’s safety guidelines that advise people to social distance and to wear a face mask.

Is your personal health data at risk during the pandemic?

If we are talking about risks related to physical facilities and possible intrusions, the level of risk is low. When we act in urgency, available resources are allocated to the crisis; in this case, people are mostly providing care. Ordinarily, focus is on running the hospital, treating patients according to established protocols and codes of conduct. However, these are not ordinary times.

Image Transfer to an Agfa PACS Server

This document is an effort to demystify the interactions between a PACS Server, radiology equipment and other PACS.

The DICOM protocol was established to resolve interfacing and communication issues with radiology equipment called modalities, which produce images for diagnostic purposes. This mainly relates to installing a server in such a way that it communicates with various modalities by using transfer protocols. The server makes images accessible to reading stations. However, the protocol does not establish how the server must operate internally; the transfer alone determines the success of the communication. The production of DICOM images is represented in the left part of the following figure.

HL7 Messages and Base64 Encoding

HL7 standards are widely used across the world to exchange clinical data. Rules for transmitting data are based on the use of readable ASCII characters. Messages can therefore be easily read. Each message comprises a sequence of segments. The first segment of a message always begins with 3 ASCII characters, the letters ‘MSH’ for Message Header. Other segment types found in a message can begin for example with ‘PID’ for Patient Identification.

Quality Policy

Imagem, including its personnel, is committed to providing a high level of quality at all levels of its operations, which are governed by the ISO 13485 standard. This standard establishes requirements to ensure product and service quality and customer satisfaction, while respecting recognized regulatory and legal requirements and in keeping with our field of activities.

Imagem: constantly refining its expertise

Imagem made its way into the healthcare system by accident. After all, what does running a simulation showing metal waves melting at Alcan and one showing the effect of treatment on tumours have in common other than using simulations for research purposes. No matter, different people came together, seized an opportunity and brought together their experience in engineering to create Imagem.

The responsibilities of a PACS and RIS supplier

For non-specialists, programming is often seen as a mysterious universe where preconceived ideas take root. Have you ever said about software or an application that a certain task was « not so complicated » to accomplish, that you only needed to « do this » to produce the desired result? In truth, the path leading to an efficient application often takes turns and presents many unforeseen obstacles… Who knows what kind of bug you might encounter?

Labour shortages: a problem for employers

Jacques Gagnon, CEO of Imagem, a high-tech firm specialized in managing data collected and processed by health systems, doesn’t believe that a labour shortage exists; he thinks it’s more of a mismatch between demand and offer. While many firms are actively seeking to hire employees, Gagnon, an engineer by trade, thinks that the situation could improve if administrators changed their mindset.

Is artificial intelligence trustworthy?

These days, we hear more and more about AI or artificial intelligence. In all or almost all areas of activity, AI seems to be the magic bullet to meet today’s challenges and to face those that lie ahead. How do we solve labour shortages? AI. How do we better target an audience? AI. How do we reduce the administrative burden? AI. However, according to Jacques Gagnon, the CEO of Imagem, a high-tech firm specialized in the development of health technologies, there is still a fly in the ointment: we overestimate the power of AI.

Is our health information kept safe?

More than ever, Quebeckers realize the importance of protecting their personal information. Recent events that have shaken the world of finance certainly served as an eye-opener. Consequently, more and more people are asking themselves what measures are taken to ensure the confidentiality and security of the information that is collected about them, which includes their electronic health records.