Copyright 2005 MediaNews Group, Inc.
The Evening Sun (Hanover, Pa.)
By ERIC TRIMMER
Hanover and York hospitals are among about four dozen Pennsylvania hospitals to receive a tool that will allow doctors and first responders to more quickly identify public exposure to bioterrorism agents from anthrax to smallpox.
Hanover Hospital has been using the database, called Visual Dx, for a couple of months already, said Joseph Bellino, the hospital’s director of Safety, Security and Emergency Management.
Bellino said the hospital was the first in Pennsylvania to start using the program, which is a database of more than 10,000 medical photographs of nearly 600 diseases that are manifested on the skin.
Forty-four other hospitals in Pennsylvania have received the disease identification systems with a $700,000 federal preparedness grant, Health Department spokesman Troy Thompson said. If it proves successful in the hospitals, state officials hope to roll it out to nearly 200 hospitals in Pennsylvania, he said.
“We know the importance of being able to quickly and accurately identify health threats,” Thompson said. “This is a big step forward for our bioterrorism preparedness.”
Bellino said Hanover Hospital’s staff decided to test the system because they thought it would be a great tool to have.
“It allows physicians to have information to more quickly and completely diagnose unfamiliar health threats and unusual symptomology,” he said.
Instead of looking at pictures in medical reference books, which typically have only a couple of examples of the worst-case scenario of an ailment, the system can show a dozen or more high-resolution images of each disease in different stages.
If a doctor doesn’t know where to start, he can begin by clicking on a general category like rash, lesions or bumps, and narrow down the possible diagnosis by adding in details like medical history, recent foreign travel and accompanying symptoms like fever or cough.
That kind of setup particularly would be valuable in the event of a bioterrorism attack, said Dr. Art Papier, founder of the Rochester, N.Y.-based Logical Images, which makes the system.
“Even the most astute clinician will have difficulty diagnosing a disease they have never seen before,” he said. “One of the lessons of the unfortunate anthrax events of 2001 was the need to better prepare doctors for identifying very rare disorders.”
The Visual Dx system is accessed through a password-protected Web site. Hospitals also receive CD-ROMs with the data in the event that a catastrophe disrupts access to the Internet.
It also can be used more routinely to identify ailments like Lyme disease and chickenpox.
“It gives you a set of possible diagnoses, then pictures and information of each of those,” said Dr. Stuart Kessler, director of emergency medicine at New York City’s Elmhurst Hospital, which has been using Visual Dx for more than a year. “It really works in a number of ways and gives you a lot of options.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Calvin B. Johnson said the system can help doctors “pinpoint diseases and administer the most effective treatment in a shorter amount of time, increasing our potential to save not only the life of a patient, but also the lives of those who may be in danger from the same threat.”