IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ORAL AND MAXILLOFACIAL RADIOLOGY IMAGE MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION-SYSTEM

Objectives: To implement an oral and maxillofacial radiology image man agement and communication system (OMFR IMACS) in the School of Dentist ry, National Taiwan University. Methods: An OMFR IMACS has been implem ented over 3 years in three phases: (I) Establishment of an OMFR image processing laboratory for research and graduate student training, (2) Installation of network infrastructure and (3) Total system integrati on. Results and conclusions: Intraoral, panoramic, cephalometric, and TMJ radiographs are directly processed with digital image acquisition devices or are converted into a digital format for viewing via UTP cab le through FastEthernet in the eleven different divisions of the schoo l. The system archives about 400 Mb of imaging data daily, representin g 80% of the workload of the OMFR Division. The system is now used par allel to the conventional film-library system and has been integrated as part of the oral health service.