LARGE PICTURE ARCHIVING AND COMMUNICATION-SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD .2.

A survey of 82 institutions worldwide was done in 1995 to identify lar ge picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) in clinical oper ation. A continuing strong trend toward the creation and operation of large PACS was identified. In the 15 months since the first such surve y the number of clinical large PACS went from 13 to 23, almost a doubl ing in that short interval. New systems were added in Asia, Europe, an d North America. A strong move to primary interpretation from soft cop y was identified, and filmless radiology has become a reality. Worksta tions for interpretation reside mainly within radiology, but one-third of reporting PACS have more than 20 workstations outside of radiology . Fiber distributed data interface networks were the most numerous. bu t a variety of networks was reported to he in use. Replies on various display times showed surprisingly good, albeit diverse, speeds. The pl anned archive length of many systems was 60 months, with usually more than 1 year of data on-line. The main large archive and oft-line stora ge media for these systems were optical disks and magneto-optical disk s. Compression was not used before interpretation in most cases. but m any systems used 2.5:1 compression for on-line, interpreted cases and 10:1 compression for longer-term archiving. A move to digital imaging and communication in medicine interface usage was identified. Copyrigh t (C) 1996 by W.B. Saunders Company