One of the most frustrating parts of medicine is trying to get access to a patient’s radiology studies that were performed at an outside hospital or from a completely different geographic area, especially when time is lacking.

Most films are standardized and can be viewed on a DICOM machine — but they require patients to carry around CDs, not ideal and practical. And if you want to get an image from another hospital system, often times you have to get a courier to get the actual CD, or just get the results faxed to you. Again, not ideal situations.

Often times, this lack of continuity leads to repeat radiology studies being performed, especially in acute settings.

But, what if all the medical images were stored on a central cloud? And physicians could share those images with each other, and even better, patients could control who had access to all of their medical images.

This cloud based solution is one step closer to reality with two key announcements by MIM software yesterday.

MIM software, the makers of the first FDA approved radiology viewing app for physicians, Mobile MIM, just released a medical imaging app aimed directly at patients, and a new cloud service called MIMCloud 2.0, enabling medical imaging to be readily stored and shared securely via a cloud service.

VueMe, the latest offering by MIM software, allows patients to store and share their medical images on the cloud, and interfaces with the physician centered FDA approved Mobile MIM app. The app uses MIMCloud 2.0, a cloud based service that stories all the radiology images — the MIMCloud 2.0 service facilitates exchange of the images from physicians to patients, and vice versa.

Basically, physicians can now send medical images they have stored on the MIMCloud 2.0 to a patient’s iOS device (iPhone or iPad) — enabling patients to keep a record of their medical images, and allowing them to share their own images with whoever they please.  Especially useful when coordination between specialists needs to occur.

Now, an OB/GYN physician can send a medical image, such as a still shot ultrasound image of a pregnant female’s child, directly to the expectant mother’s smart phone.  Even more revolutionary, the mother has the ability to share that images with her primary care physician or any other physician she pleases.

This last example is where the functionality of the app truly shines: Patients can use VueMe and share their images with other physicians who use the MIMCloud 2.0. Instead of a patient having to take a manilla folder or CD with radiology results — they can use a cloud service to store their images, and beam them to other specialists who might not have immediate access to their medical imaging.

Mobile MIM, the radiology app for physicians, was a huge hit in its own right — mainly due to it’s FDA approved status, allowing physicians to feel comfortable using the app for diagnostic purposes. Even to this day, Mobile MIM remains the only FDA approved radiology viewing app. Along with its FDA approved status, Mobile MIM also earned tremendous accolades from iMedicalApps in an in depth review we did earlier in the year:

MobileMIM and MIMCloud are a great way to view, store and share radiology imaging.  Mobile MIM is a great piece of iOS software engineering, with remarkably fluid navigation throughout even large study sets. The ability to perform mutli-planar imaging and locate a structure in three planes simultaneously is very useful. Using MIMCloud to share imaging studies greatly simplifies communication and removes an important pain point, while the updates to uploading studies coming with MIMCloud 2.0 will also be very welcome.

We understand MIM has received much attention from physicians following the announcement of their FDA clearance. From this experience, it seems the attention is well deserved.

Clearly, cloud storage of not only radiology images, but patient records, is, and should be the future.  If Mobile MIM and VueMe can continue to gain significant mind share, patient records stored in a universal cloud, and not EHR silos, should be the next logical step forward.

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vueme/id437850916?mt=8

Details about MobileCloud 2.0, including payment structure: https://mim-cloud.appspot.com/landing/index