I found a little article in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Logical Images databases garner national attention, about the use of VisualDx, a visual diganostic tool. VisualDx "allows doctors who don't specialize in dermatology to take an unfamiliar skin abnormality and use the image database and a number of search criteria to diagnose a condition at hand."

VisualDx is produced by Logical Images, a private Rochester company founded in 1996 by Dr. Art Papier, a dermatologist who is an associate professor at the University of Rochester medical school.

It contains over 10,000 photographed medical images of 600 conditions allowing the physician to differential diagnosis and visual comparison of diseases. "Unlike any medical atlas or online source, VisualDx does not require the clinician to search by diagnosis name." Physicians can enter the patient's clinical features to view the diagnoses with the most relevance. Searches can be by single or multiple clinical findings such as: Morphology, Distribution, Symptoms, Signs, Medications, Exposures, Occupation, Medical history, Travel, etc.

Currently VisualDx is only available through an institional subscription and pricing is based on the number of users, the number of installations, the combination of desired modules and the time period of the license.
Institutions have three types of access options:
1. Standalone-Individual PCs
2. ASP-Application hosted by Logical Images, accessed over the Internet by client software on your users' PCs
3.Web Server-Application hosted on your server, accessed over your intranet by client software on your users' PCs

VisualDx is licensed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for use by its bioterrorism response and vaccination teams. The U.S. Army has installed it nationwide at 32 locations and the New York City Department of Health made VisualDx available over 40,000 doctors through Health Alert Network.

It sounds to be a promising database. I would be interested in hearing opinions from other librarians or physicians whose institutions subscribe to it.