Cabling nightmare

hello all, anyone a cabling wiz out there?
I know it been a few days since the last one here but work piled up while at SIIM.
I am sure some of you are waiting breathlessly for their CIIP certs to arrive in the mail - I personally run to the mail box every evening and...actually I haven't yet picked up the mail - the wife usually does that and I haven't really thought about the exam since I took it. I expect most everyone else is like that as well.

If you are like me you probably have about a million other things to worry about and CIIP ain't one of them. Kids, friends, home, will a server go down tonight are way higher on my list than CIIP. But since I am talking about it here now, I'll say I will be pleasantly surprised to pass.
as noted in my other posts and...(well I was going to say others but only clubpacs and I seem to show up on google) many of the test questions were terribly written. I am sure there are a few forums that have threads and please email me the links. in all the lack of chatter out there is underwelming...
...but there's always work!

A list of my active and soon to be active projects: (in no particular order)

Voice Recognition / Speech Recognition
Contract is in negs now. Lawyers are fighting over words and I am praying they get this thing done yesterday. I so need a new dictation system

QA
Getting quotes together to buy new monitor QA HW & SW
I spent a few days at an excellent SENCOR seminar and am unsatisfied with our current monitor QA.

Cath Lab
the above mentioned cabling has been a nightmare - first the second monitor boom never gets sent and ends up arriving 2 weeks late...which means the vendor must pull a crew from another site to come install...the new crew then doesn't want to pull cables to their competitors EP system - we fight, I win (sort of). I at least get them to pull near enough so I can get the EP guys to perform their end. Believe it or not the ADT's between 3 vendors were easier than this. THOROUGHLY unimpressed with all vendors at this point.

Vascular US
I am a bit upset with our vendor we've got a system that needs MS patches but the vendor won't let us patch and still support the app. oh yeah, did I mention that the vulnerabilities allow the machine to propagate worms across out network...so far antivirus is catching everything. No word yet on when or if we will be able to patch. Doesn't make me real excited about buying another system from them and I may not despite the fact that one of their products may well be a very nice fit for us.
FYI - All new systems going in will have a clause in the contract stating when and how the vendor will support updates.
Also see this which is a top ten list on when to change your PACS vendor but can easily be applied to other areas.

Reading Room
finally got everyone happy in there...maybe they're more comfortable now - at any rate the complaining has stopped and productivity is getting back up there. we'll see in a couple weeks when I receive the Turn-Around-Time for this month.

Inventory
This will be a new one, for a while now I've been wondering just what the hell I have out there, where the hell is it and how old it is. No records from previous caretakers could be found. Since I now have some help (RD started this week) I think this will be a good project to take on - familiarize him with the area and we'll get a better picture of what we got.

Training
Going to have the vendor bring in some apps people to refresh / retrain our superusersmastertrainers or what ever you call them. I have a few and with turnover and previous admin's priorities on other things I am wanting to make a fresh start.

DR
making progress with this one. We've seen about 6 vendors give us proposals. This is a joint effort with IT (as it should be) to find the solution which will fit every one's needs and I have a warm fuzzy feeling inside about this one.

PACS Health
I usually don't put vendor names in here but in this case I will. I am absolutely stoked about this one. If you don't know what PACS Health does google em'

OB U/S
this one is a pain in my...you get the picture - a department with no idea about where they need to be with their system and so far continue to think they will continue with their outdated and in efficient work flow...I am so glad I will not be supporting their app! (knock on wood for me)

Data Center
We have to re-rack our entire data center! I am a happy camper about this one! Allows me to move everything off our older MOD(s) and onto spinning disk to make some more room

That's about it - not bad for one guy (well two now) and this doesn't include the modality integration for new equip, opening a new urgent care with rad services and supporting a remote station 100 miles away and there's always...well, there's always something

SIIM 07 - CIIP Exam

heard there will be questions on the DICOM standard

links below...

PS 3.1: Introduction and Overview
PS 3.2: Conformance
PS 3.3: Information Object Definitions
PS 3.4: Service Class Specifications
PS 3.5: Data Structure and Encoding
PS 3.6: Data Dictionary
PS 3.7: Message Exchange
PS 3.8: Network Communication Support for Message Exchange
PS 3.9: Retired
PS 3.10: Media Storage and File Format for Data Interchange
PS 3.11: Media Storage Application Profiles
PS 3.12: Storage Functions and Media Formats for Data Interchange
PS 3.13: Retired
PS 3.14: Grayscale Standard Display Function
PS 3.15: Security and System Management Profiles
PS 3.16: Content Mapping Resource
PS 3.17: Explanatory Information
PS 3.18: Web Access to DICOM Persistent Objects (WADO)

SIIM - Test Time

ABII is running the Pilot Exam for the CIIP Certification today.

Yikes! rumors are running rampant as to the difficulty of the test. But if the content is anything similar to the level of knowledge I've seen here everyone should be fine...trouble is that anyone with any standing around here keeps saying that they haven't seen any test questions and that their presentations are NOT and CANNOT be depended on to provide adequate preparation.

So what was the pre-conference symposium about - did I waste $200?

this thing may be a crap-shoot...

The good news is when I fail the thing I can retake it in September for 1/2 price...

Time to go to the trade show floor and grab lunch and schwag...

Good Luck on the exam everyone! You just may need it!

SIIM 07 - Correction to previous post

My Bad...there is no one here today ballrooms E and C have less than 50 people in them and ballroom A is pathetic.
Dr Chang is giving an overview of wireless tech and secruity
wiki
Here are a few of the things you must have:
Use WPA with EAP and authenticate through an external server (LDAP, etc)
Use Encryption: TKIP, AES (WPA2)
Ensure Message Intergrity: MIC (link is a nice overview of wireless with an explanation of MIC)
The 802.11 abc's are here for the regular folk and here for the pacs-weenies.

And on a practical note, as with your PACS - Do it right or DON'T do it at all...

SIIM Day Three

Day three is under way.
SIIM U Section 7 covered IHE and you would have been bored out of your skull if you attended this one.
That's not to say it was not informative but it was boring - thought to be fair the topic is not as glamorous as . . . well let's face it this is not a glamorous job.

The Section was not as well attended as I expected ... who knew a scientific section would beat out a SIIM U section?

The speakers were not the best either and the audience was in a coma - no one asked any questions...and I know the level of presentation was so general that no one took anything away other that IHE exists - and that Canada is trying to implement an 'initiative'
good luck on that . . .

SIIM 07 - Data Center

In the data center talk now. SIIM U Section 6 is the official designation.
If you are in the field you should be here.

The information is basic but necessary to hear.

Many of us may already know that HA is the goal of the data center but this talk focuses on many of the necessary components which work together to acheive high availability.

There is some reference to the TCP/IP model and if you are a PACS Admin with a Radiology background that is unfimilar with the model go here:
Wiki
Cisco

TK and I are talking about our experience now... Steve Lanager the section head for this talk just posed the question - what does high availability cost?

me: what does it cost not to have HA?
TK: your job...

He's right too, if you are in charge of your PACS you need HA...Period.

If you don't have it, it's time to start planning yesterday, talk to your IT crew and if you don't have a good relationship with them it's time to start stopping by the server team's cube with treats and questions...

Here's a sample visio of HA - your network and config will vary....

SIIM 2007

The 07' SIIM is underway here in the Ocean State!
beautiful here this year too!
I paid my own way this year which means I stayed on the Beach in Naragansett instead of in Providence. Only 30 minutes away and I'd rather be near the beach...




The Important Stuff - Schwag:
Cambridge Computers - T-shirts
PACS Health - Ergonomic Clip on Pens
GE - emergency celly chargers - I used mine and it works great - Got me through a 40min t-con yesterday...
Emageon - Sony Wii game unit
Fuji - Camera
Amicas - iPhone !!!!!!!!!!

What you came here for...
Vendors to see for new and cool:

Mice and Keyboards, Microphones
Contour Design - Shuttle Pro Mouse and Roller Pro - the roller pro is extra nice expecially with the full wrist rest...
Dictaphone - Phillips SpeachMike Pro w/ integrated roller mouse


LCD / Flat Panel
Double Black
NEC
Barco

Richardsons Electronics - flat panel CRT Replacement monitors with any input you want, bnc to DVI and anything in between
Planar - SWEET color flat panel monitors

3D
Calgary Scientific - Mac and Windows platform and easy to use...
Emageon - Saw them at RSNA 06' and have upgraded since...


Misc.
Cambridge Computer - Storage Solutions and Nice T-Shirts
PACS Health - database reconciliation and integrity - who doesn't need that!