A gesture-based tool for sterile browsing of radiology images.

The use of doctor-computer interaction devices in the operation room (OR) requires new modalities that support medical imaging manipulation while allowing doctors' hands to remain sterile, supporting their focus of attention, and providing fast response times. This paper presents "Gestix," a vision-based hand gesture capture and recognition system that interprets in real-time the user's gestures for navigation and manipulation of images in an electronic medical record (EMR) database. Navigation and other gestures are translated to commands based on their temporal trajectories, through video capture.

Evaluating the Health SmartLibrary.

The Health SmartLibrary (HSL), supported by the National Library of Medicine (Information Systems grant # 1 G08 LM07051-01A1), is a web-based system designed to target resources relevant to the users' information needs. Faculty and librarians collaborated to build tools that would make access to information resources easy and efficient. These tools include current awareness; a metasearch engine; a file cabinet; personalization features; and discipline-based resource collections.

Chronic pulmonary embolism.

Preview Patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension have nonspecific complaints, and their disease is often not recognized until it is far advanced. Because medical management does not reverse the effects of the disease or prevent progression, pulmonary endarterectomy by an experienced surgical team is currently the preferred treatment. However, the risks of surgery are substantial and must be weighed against the probable benefit.

Acute pulmonary embolism.

Preview According to the authors, acute pulmonary embolism can never be considered clinically insignificant. Many patients die before reaching medical help, but appropriate therapy for those who survive may greatly reduce the potential for sudden death and long-term morbidity. This article describes the proper steps in the management of both stable and unstable acute pulmonary embolism.