Intermezzo: The rise of healthcare informatics

Recent years have shown an enormous increase in the quantity of image data generated by the various imaging modalities, including multislice CT and a growing number of dynamic and functional modalities. The size of this increase has already led to the expression ''data explosion'', and the quantity of data to be managed is increasing exponentially. Although the increased quantity of data has the potential to reveal more detailed clinical information, the question remains of how to make efficient and effective use of the data, for example by applying advanced image processing, and integrating the tasks and results efficiently into the workflow. (orig.)