Designing diagnostic workstations for neuroradiology

Despite over a decade of development, diagnostic radiology workstations have not gained popular acceptance by radiologists. Among the requirements for a clinically acceptable workstation are good image quality, a well designed user-interface, and access to ancillary diagnostic information. The user-interface should reflect radiologists' film reading habits and encourage new reading methods that take advantage of the electronic environment. We documented neuroradiologists' reading habits and used software engineering tools to design interfaces that could provide rapid access to common diagnostic tasks in neuroradiology. We used an embedded configuration tool to prototype layouts for specific clinical cases on a commercial workstation, and database integration and user-interface design tools to develop interfaces for browsing medical records. We then designed an image presentation model using the concept of a `virtual view box' for the rapid browsing and pairwise comparison of images. We used the interface design tools to prototype the `virtual view box' on commercially available hardware and tested it with experienced neuroradiologists.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.