Researchers at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in conjunction with four other academic medical institutions are touting the use of cloud technology for medical image sharing. According to the researchers, patients are saying the cloud offers a faster, more efficient way to store and distribute their medical images than current options.

The research, called The Phase I results of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Image Share project, were presented at the American Roentgen Ray Society Annual Meeting in Vancouver.  Mount Sinai was the first site to go live in August 2011. It has about 190 patients enrolled in project, with a total about 600 patients are participating in all sites, which also include University of California - San Francisco, University of Chicago Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, and the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

"This is the next revolution in digital imaging," says David Mendelson, M.D., chief of Clinical Informatics at The Mount Sinai Medical Center and chief clinical investigator for RSNA Image Share. "It gives the patient ownership over their records and makes the information more accessible to physicians. Plus it decreases unnecessary radiation exposure that can be caused by physicians ordering duplicate examinations due to records not being easily available."

In phase two of the trial, patients will be allowed to share their images without the images first being uploaded to an Internet-based personal health record. Researchers say this could be useful in the event of severe acute trauma, with transfer to a trauma center. In phase three, the data will be de-identified and then made available for clinical trials.