A HOSPITAL INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK FOR MULTIMODALITY IMAGE BASE MANAGEMENT

The trend in healthcare information technology is increasingly digital and multimedia oriented. The next generation of health care informati on systems will consist of a vast network of heterogeneous, autonomous , and distributed imaging scanners, databases, information systems, kn owledge intensive applications, and large quantities of multimedia med ical data. A key challenge facing system researchers and builders is t o provide a new organizational framework that can integrate this varie d collection of resources into what appears to be a uniform and logica l conglomeration of data and knowledge store in order to increase the availability of globalor previously nonaccessible information and to a ddress demanding new information processing requirements for diverse i mage-assisted medical applications. The purpose of this paper is to pr esent our research toward the development of a hospital integrated fra mework of multimodality image base management (MIBM) for digital radio logy of the future. This evolutionary framework consists of three hier archical components: a hospital-integrated picture archiving and commu nication system (HI-PACS), a medical image database system (MIDS), and . a set of image-based medical applications that relies on the support of MIDS and PACS. In this paper, we describe the system architecture, guiding principles, and design specifications of HI-PACS and MIDS and illustrate their functions and capabilities with three implemented ap plications, namely, patient folder workflow, distributed object manage ment, and multimodality imaging studies. In addition, we conclude our findings with a summary of challenges and research directions.