High-performance telemedicine information management

The rapid advances in high performance global communication have accelerate d cooperative image-based medical services to a new frontier. Traditional i mage-based medical services such as radiology and diagnostic consultation c an now fully utilize multimedia technologies to provide novel services, inc luding remote cooperative medical triage, distributed virtual simulation of operations, as well as cross-country collaborative medical research and tr aining. Fast (efficient) and easy (flexible) retrieval of relevant images r emains a critical requirement for the provision of remote medical services. This paper describes the database system requirements and presents a syste m architecture of a distributed multimedia database system, MISSION-DBS, wh ich has been designed to fulfill the goals of Project MISSION (medical imag ing support via satellite integrated optical network)-an experimental high performance gigabit satellite communication network linking remote supercom puting power, medical image databases, and 3D visualization capabilities, i n addition to medical expertise anywhere and anytime around the globe, The MISSION-DBS design employs a synergistic fusion of techniques in distribute d databases (DDB) and artificial intelligence (AI) for storing, migrating, accessing, and exploring images. The efficient storage and retrieval of vol uminous image information is achieved by integrating DDB modeling and AI te chniques for image processing while the flexible retrieval mechanisms are a ccomplished by combining attribute-based and content-based retrievals. (C) 1999 Academic Press. Inc.