Centro de Informática, Departamento de Informática, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil.
JMIR Med Inform. 2014 Oct 3;2(2):e27. doi: 10.2196/medinform.3648.
The current widespread use of medical images and imaging procedures in clinical practice and patient diagnosis has brought about an increase in the demand for sharing medical imaging studies among health professionals in an easy and effective manner. This article reveals the existence of a polarization between the local and global demands for radiology practice. While there are no major barriers for sharing such studies, when access is made from a (local) picture archive and communication system (PACS) within the domain of a healthcare organization, there are a number of impediments for sharing studies among health professionals on a global scale. Social radiology as an information infrastructure involves the notion of a shared infrastructure as a public good, affording a social space where people, organizations and technical components may spontaneously form associations in order to share clinical information linked to patient care and radiology practice. This article shows however, that such polarization establishes a tension between local and global demands, which hinders the emergence of social radiology as an information infrastructure. Based on an analysis of the social space for radiology practice, the present article has observed that this tension persists due to the inertia of a locally installed base in radiology departments, for which common teleradiology models are not truly capable of reorganizing as a global social space for radiology practice. Reconciling the local with the global signifies integrating PACS and teleradiology into an evolving, secure, heterogeneous, shared, open information infrastructure where the conceptual boundaries between (local) PACS and (global) teleradiology are transparent, signaling the emergence of social radiology as an information infrastructure.
当前，医学影像和成像技术在临床实践和患者诊断中的广泛应用，使得医疗专业人员之间以简单有效的方式共享医学影像研究的需求不断增加。本文揭示了放射科实践中存在的局部和全球需求之间的两极分化。虽然在本地的影像存档与通信系统（PACS）中共享这些研究并没有什么大的障碍，但当从医疗保健组织内部的 PACS 访问时，在全球范围内，在医疗专业人员之间共享研究则存在许多障碍。作为信息基础设施的社会放射学涉及到共享基础设施作为公共产品的概念，为人们、组织和技术组件提供了一个社会空间，使他们可以自发地形成关联，以共享与患者护理和放射科实践相关的临床信息。然而，本文表明，这种两极分化在局部和全球需求之间造成了紧张关系，从而阻碍了社会放射学作为信息基础设施的出现。通过对放射科实践的社会空间进行分析，本文观察到，由于放射科部门中本地安装基础的惯性，这种紧张关系仍然存在，对于共同的远程放射学模型，无法真正实现作为全球放射科实践的社会空间进行重组。协调局部与全球之间的关系意味着将 PACS 和远程放射学集成到一个不断发展的、安全的、异构的、共享的、开放的信息基础设施中，在这个基础设施中，（本地）PACS 和（全球）远程放射学之间的概念边界是透明的，这标志着社会放射学作为信息基础设施的出现。
