ESTABLISHMENT OF AN EMERGENCY CT SERVICE BY MEANS OF TELERADIOLOGY

The teleradiological connection between the University Hospital in Inn sbruck, Tyrol, and the Regional Hospital in Zwettl, Lower Austria, is presented as an example of a routine online connection of two helical CT systems. Purpose: To establish a practicable and cost-efficient eme rgency CT service in a remote hospital during night time and on weeken ds. Material and methods: Online connection of a GE HiSpeed Advantage- Spiral-CT and a GE Prospeed-Spiral-CT via two Sun SPARC 10 work statio ns and ISDN. Results: The transmission of 121 CT data sets from 116 pa tients revealed a sufficiently fast average transmission time of 15 (6 -53) minutes and average transmission costs of DM 9.00 per examination . The system was technically reliable, cost-efficient and practicable in clinical routine application. Conclusions: Teleradiology enables re mote hospitals to provide an emergency CT service even if there is no radiological specialist available outside office hours. Thus time-cons uming and cost-intensive patient transfers and delay of therapy can be reduced.