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Action Items (details below)

Harvard Translational Imaging Consortium Meeting Minutes November 25, 2008

In Attendance (via phone):

• Randy Gollub
• Carolyn Zyloney
• Jeff Yap
• Bill Hanlon
• Gordon Harris
• Gordon Williams
• Clare Tempany
• Annick D. Van den Abbeele
• Laura Alice

1. Educational Program

• The Imaging Consortium will set dates and times for the upcoming educational seminars at an upcoming meeting.
  • In order to secure a room at BWH and MGH, these educational meetings must be booked well in advance.
  • The Slicer presentation held in Fall 2008 had a limited capacity of 20-40 seats, and these seats filled quickly. It is hoped that there will be equally strong demand for the upcoming educational seminars

2. Imaging Information and Acquisition Liaison Job Position

• The job description has been circulated through several outlets:
  • MGH has been asked to post the position on the Partners careers site
  • An email with the job description was sent to the Martinos Center community via email.
  • An ad for the position was posted on the RSNA web site starting in mid-November. It will be posted there for a month.
  • The ad has also been posted on numerous career websites.
  • The ad will be featured in the December issue of Radiology (an RSNA publication).
  • A short description of the position will be posted on a monitor at the Career Connection booth at the RSNA Conference in December.
• Three promising candidates have been invited in for interviews with several members of the consortium.
  • The candidates have been instructed to contact the interviewers and set up appointments.
  • Several consortium members have confirmed that all three candidates have contacted them.
  • Interviews will continue through the next few weeks.
• Most materials from the applicants is already posted on the Xythos file sharing website. Additional materials, such as notes from meetings with the candidate's references will be posted shortly.
• After interviewing the job applicants, all interviewers are requested to make comments on the "Form Sheet For Evaluation" located in each applicant's directory, and post an updated version of this document on the Xythos site.

3. Neuroinformatics

• While the goals of the National CTSC Imaging Informatics working group are complementary to the goals of the Harvard CTSC Imaging Group, the national group has a different set of strategic goals than the Consortium.
  • The time line over which the national goals will be carried out is unclear.
  • The Imaging Consortium unanimously agreed to continue with our plan to connect the XNAT instances at each of the institutions within the Harvard CTSC.
  • In designing this first step for connecting the Harvard institutions, the Harvard CTSC Imaging Group will work to ensure that our system is interoperable with the national goals and systems.

• Establishing a connection between all sites within the Harvard CTSC is anticipated to be a large and difficult project.
  • Several hard lines already exist between BIDMC and Partners as well as Children's Hospital and Partners. The Consortium plans on finding out more about the locations and technical details of these hard lines and if they can support the transfer of Imaging data.

• The Imaging Consortium agreed to try to connect with the heads of IT and Informatics at each site.
  • Randy met with Shawn Murphy from Partners IT. Shawn Murphy has been making good progress in presenting the Imaging group's goals to the head of IT at Partners.
  • Randy will meet with Simon and Stephan to learn more about the IT department and Children's Hospital and the progress that the Consortium members from Children's Hospital have made in sharing the Informatics proposal.

• The Imaging Consortium agreed to set up a follow up meeting with the CTSC Informatics Group to discuss the progress that has been made since last meeting with that working group.

• Randy suggested that the Consortium members consider preparing a manuscript on the issues of data sharing and the protection of human subjects as they relate to neuroinformatics. Randy plans on meeting with Paula O'Rourke to discuss writing a manuscript for publication.

4. Physiological Monitoring

• One of the goals of the Harvard CTSC Imaging Consortium is to set up a uniform physiological monitoring system at each site.
  • Harvard, MIT, MGH, and BIDMC have requested a physiological monitoring system
  • Randy Gollub plans on meeting with Emily Stern to discuss setting up a physiological monitoring system at BWH.

• Randy is working with AD Instruments to obtain a quote for a physiological monitoring system including GSR, a respiratory belt, and installation and training for each of the interested sites.
  • Consortium members should contact Randy immediately to recommend adding any other features to the physiological monitoring system.

• The Consortium would like to purchase the main equiptment for each system within the next two weeks.
  • The customizable components of the physiological monitoring system will be set up at each site in order of priority over the next 6 months.

• A representative from AD instruments, two MGH biomedical engineers, and the future Imaging Liaison will help to set up the physiological monitoring system at each site and train users how to use the equiptment.
  • Two excellent biomedical engineers from MGH, Vitaly Napadow and Giorgio Bonmassar, have been recruited by the CTSC to assist.
  • Each site should recruit a local person to help maintain and support the physiological monitoring system.

5. RSNA

• There are several events of interest during RSNA. The Imaging Consortium has discussed plans to attend these meetings:
  • An informational session on the activities of the Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers Alliance (QIBA), will be held Monday, December 1, 2008 from 10:30 AM – 12:00 Noon (McCormick Convention Center, Room S103 C&D). Dan Sullivan is the host of this meeting.
    The December 1, 2008 meeting will provide more information about QIBA’s history, process, and goals. In addition, each of the three QIBA Technical Committees will provide updates on their projects. This meeting is open to all RSNA Annual Meeting attendees, so feel free to share this information with other interested persons. If you are unable to attend, please be aware that an informational exhibit on QIBA’s goals and the work of the Technical Committees will also be displayed in the Learning Center during RSNA 2008.
    Annick has agreed to attend this session as a representative of the Imaging Consortium.
  • The PET, MRI, and CT working groups will be meeting on Thursday December 4th. These meetings provide an opportunity for pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers, software groups, and clinical trials researchers to formulate guidelines.
    Jeff Yap has agreed to attend these sessions if they are pertinent to the Imaging Consortium's goals.

6. Consultation Page Update

• The Imaging Consultation Web-page is live on the Harvard Catalyst website.
• The Consortium agreed that the first order of business each week should be a review any new consultation requests.