Rochester, NY - September 15, 2004 - In a continuing effort to further strengthen the emergency preparedness and response capabilities of New York State's healthcare system, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) has selected Logical Images to provide VisualDx diagnostic software to eight Regional Resource Centers (RRCs) throughout upstate New York.
New York's RRCs, in collaboration with the NYSDOH, local health departments, emergency management planners, and health care organizations, would assist in implementing a regional response to an emergency event or disease outbreak. The eight RRCs deploying VisualDx are the Albany Medical Center, Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital Medical Center, Erie County Medical Center, North Shore University Hospital, Stony Brook University Hospital, Strong Memorial Hospital, Upstate University Medical Center, and Westchester Medical Center.
"With the installations in the eight RRCs in upstate New York and a significant number of New York City hospitals, VisualDx helps improve day-to-day healthcare and protect lives in the event of a terrorist attack or health emergency," said Michael O'Connor, president, Logical Images. "Regular use of VisualDx to diagnose both common and uncommon conditions in patients builds on New York's overall emergency preparedness capabilities and support of its healthcare infrastructure."
VisualDx is an interactive point-of-care diagnostic and training software system that helps front-line healthcare workers, bioterrorism responders, and other healthcare professionals quickly and accurately diagnose and appropriately treat diseases. Earlier this year, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH) made VisualDx accessible to over 40,000 physicians on its Health Alert Network (HAN). In addition, the NYCDOHMH deployed VisualDx at the point-of-care in twenty hospital emergency departments in metro New York.
The funding for this initiative was provided through a NYSDOH grant. VisualDx is a medical advancement that will assist health care providers in accurately diagnosing a patient and quickly determine the disease and the bioterrorism agent that may have caused the condition (including nearly every CDC Category A, B, and C agent), burns and poisonings caused by chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction, common and unusual dermatological and infectious diseases; sexually transmitted diseases, and drug eruptions.
With instant access to thousands of medical photographs, VisualDx allows a clinician to quickly assess the range in presentation for each disease, see how it looks on different skin types and view unusual variations. The system also helps improve healthcare in communities with limited access to a dermatologist or other specialists.
VisualDx uses patient findings, such as symptoms, signs, medications, medical and travel history, and lesion types, to develop a visual differential diagnosis. The system merges 7,000 images, covering more than 500 diseases, with text describing each disease, information about what a clinician should look for, the differential diagnosis and which diagnostic tests to order. Other information includes treatment recommendations and a series of pearls covering public health notification, vaccine and quarantine information. The VisualDx system features a number of modules, including Terrorism Recognition; Fever, Rash & Bioterrorism; Drug Eruptions; Smallpox Vaccination; Adult Dermatology; Dark Skin Dermatology; and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
About Logical Images
Logical Images (www.logicalimages.com) develops and markets proprietary point-of-care visual diagnostic software that further enables health care providers to quickly identify, accurately diagnose and treat infectious diseases, agents of bioterrorism, drug eruptions and a wide range of common ailments and medical conditions. The company's flagship product -- VisualDx -- is an expansive set of tools that merges the world's largest collection of digitized images of medical conditions with rich textual information to provide a unique patient-centric approach. Built around a core patent pending recognition technology, this approach helps clinicians build a custom visual differential diagnosis based on their patient's symptoms, signs, medications, medical history and other findings, and has been shown to significantly improve diagnostic accuracy of primary care and emergency physicians in comparison to using textbooks and atlases.