Lee Daly's Personal Experience with ImageInbox

If given the choice between being stranded alone in the middle of nowhere, at 3:00am, during a hailstorm, without a jacket or flashlight – or – in an emergency room without previous CT or MRI images for comparison, which would you choose?  

Sadly, I would choose being stranded and alone – at least I could call the shots and possibly MacGuyver my way out of the situation.  However, I found myself in the emergency room predicament with the ER doctors wanting to scrub in and rush my daughter for brain stem surgery. There was no MacGuyver-ing out of that situation, at least so it seemed.

It never dawned on me that because the emergency room doctors didn’t have any of my daughter’s previous imaging studies taken over a decade earlier at a different institution, that they would miss important information relevant for making the best decisions about my daughter’s life right at that very moment.  

It was then that I was introduced to the life-saving ImageInbox® software, which no patient should ever be without. It gives the patient – or anyone of the patient’s choosing – the ability to log in to his or her account, view, and most importantly, share full diagnostic-quality images. These images aren’t just copies; they are the real DICOM digital imaging files and can be transferred by the patient whenever and wherever needed. This gives healthcare providers assurance that when using the images from ImageInbox® they can make a diagnosis, evaluate for a second opinion, or even assist in image-guided procedures. Radiology reports are also available on the app and it's free for patients to use!

I am a firm believer in making life easier for patients and families dealing with chronic disease management, and I have been advocating for them since 1998 when my daughter began her journey with brain surgeries and countless doctor visits at many different hospitals. As I became deeply involved in her care, I saw first-hand how medical systems can and do break down, wreaking havoc on patients, their families, and the quality of care they receive.  

What patients don’t need is more stress, but our increasingly confusing and overburdened medical system seems to consider the needs of patients last. For example, can you access your health records from one doctor or hospital on another doctor or hospital’s website? No. Do these records communicate with one another? No, they don’t. And what about during emergencies? You’re out of luck.

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are great when we use only one institution, but life is not always that simple. We move, we travel, we switch jobs and change insurance companies – all impacting what healthcare providers we see and who has access to our prior medical imaging history...until now.  

ImageInbox® was created out of an existing radiology software already in use supporting international clinical research trials for over 10 years, and adapted for medical and dental providers to share images with one another easily and efficiently. Unique to ImageInbox®, the platform was designed for the benefit of the patient by providing them with a free tool to safeguard their own healthcare data. Now we can turn to our smart phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, and instantly share our imaging studies and reports with whomever we want. This means that when we really need to find and use previous X-ray, CT or MRI images, they are literally at our fingertips.

I am now free from the worry or panic about obtaining previous images should an emergency arise. For those with chronic illnesses or for those who just want to safeguard their own medical imaging and reports, ImageInbox® is a true lifesaver. It saved my daughter’s life by providing the necessary background information to avoid a life-threatening emergency brain surgery. I can’t urge everyone enough to download the app and let your providers know that you want a digital copy of your diagnostic images because the next life ImageInbox® saves just might be yours.