There is another proposal for a 'medical imaging' SE. From what I see, this proposal is distinct in the sense that healthcare IT will be much more concerned with data management, informatics, HIPAA issues etc. whereas medical imaging will hopefully focus on imaging physics,acquisition,and analysis... Is this a reasonable dichotomy or does anyone think the two could be merged?
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3 Answers
Given the breadth of involved disciplines in the narrow application of medical imaging, I'd say that there are plenty of non IT concerns to be addressed in a separate SE. Healthcare IT as a general practice is in fact much more concerned about the other aspects of maintaining a large network than just the integration of data generation devices such as medical imaging instruments. These 'fields' do overlap significantly, but it's my opinion that they do not sufficiently do so enough to justify excluding all of the other aspects of medical imaging by merging it with healthcare IT.
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On the other hand, medical imaging may not have a very broad audience on SE. I'm currently facing a somewhat similar situation with a proposed chemical engineering SE. Getting people involved in the medical imaging SE from specialist/professional communities elsewhere on the internet will likely be the only practical means of moving this forward, otherwise it may need to merge with an overlapping SE to exist as a useful resource for medical imaging knowledge. Mar 17, 2011 at 15:40
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@xenomancer, E&R is only saved by the fact that there are so many hobbyist in the field. I cannot image that many hobbyist chemical engineers.– KortukMar 17, 2011 at 19:25
My intent with the original Healthcare IT proposal was that it would apply for Medical Imaging, also. My expertise is more in medical imaging than anywhere else, and my selfish reason for the proposal was to have a SE site to ask questions in the field.
As was proven by the inactivity on the Medical Imaging site, it was just too narrow, and there are not enough people involved in the Medical Imaging community that are also involved to make it work. I think the Healthcare IT site has to have a broad scope (including medical imaging) to make it viable.
In fact, I'm hoping that it will help supplement and perhaps replace sites like the Aunt Minnie message boards, the comp.protocols.dicom usenet group, and the Yahoo PACS administrator group as the defactor location for asking questions related to Medical Imaging and Healtcare IT in general on the web.
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I have to agree. The scope of medical imaging is spreading to many more specialties at the same time that Radiolgy departments are integrating ever more tightly into hospital IT infrastructures. Sep 10, 2011 at 1:30
