Modernizing medical photography, part 1.

Abstract

Government, media and public focus on waiting times in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom has forced the organization to look closely at the process by which a patient progresses through an increasingly complex and ever changing system. In an effort to streamline the patient journey or care pathway, modernizers have turned to business and manufacturing for solutions. Whilst medical photographers need to recognize their role in this context, they are also facing major technological modernization through the development of digital photography. Part 1 of this paper looks at the origins of some of the techniques presently being used to modernize the patient journey. Part 2 shows how these tools of modernization can be utilized to harness the advantages of digital technology to provide a modern and appropriate medical photography service in a large, disparate teaching hospital.