The Society for Computer Applications in Radiology

THIS IS MY FIRST LETTER as the new Chairman of the Society for Computer Applications in Radiology (SCAR). I am looking forward to working with all of you in the coming year. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions. It's the input of the members that allows this organization to continue to serve the medical-imaging community. The annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) was as big as ever this year, and a large number of SCAR members participated in InfoRad. Many new and interesting image display systems were shown at the RSNA meeting and the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) 3.0 "connect-a-thon" was bigger than ever. At this moment, picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) are commercially viable for a large number of modalities and applications, and more applications will become cost effective as hardware costs continue to drop and as we improve the design of these tools. Thurman Gillespy's group demonstrated the new SCAR World-Wide-Web server in the SCAR booth at the RSNA meeting. You can access the SCAR Web server over the Internet at www.scar.washington.edu. A number of SCAR publications are also available. Your group's library or a colleague might be interested in the proceedings from a past SCAR conference or in one of our handbooks on understanding PACS or on teleradiology. These items can be obtained by calling (717) 561-5255. As SCAR members, one of our jobs is to be a conduit for information to our colleagues. One way each of us can help is by participating in the various medical-imaging and medical informatics NEWS groups on the Internet. You will