WWW-based access to radiological patient data: Two years of experience

This paper describes the theoretical concept behind, the technical implemen tation of, and the experiences created with a self-developed system to acce ss radiological patient data by WWW-technology. Materials and Methods: The WWW-system interfaces the RIS via HL7 and the PACS via DICOM. Core componen ts are a secure Web-Server and an underlying database system (DB). The DB c ontains all relevant information from the RIS and thumbnails of correspondi ng images archived in the PACS. After authorisation, the user receives this information in the form of dynamically generated Web pages. By mouse-click ing a thumbnail, the original DICOM-image is sent. It is displayed with a h elper application (DICOM-Viewer), allowing all kinds of image manipulation and post-processing. Results: Determined advantages of the system were: pla tform independence, security features, a fixed link of image and report, un iversal availability, and simple usage. The only critical issue was perform ance. Cost savings could be seen in: a reduction of DICOM workstations, emp loyment of all available hardware, and reduced training and teaching effort s. Conclusions: The author believes that a WWW-based concept is the only fe asible approach which is in the same way technically possible, clinically a cceptable, and financially affordable in order to grant a variety of users access to radiological data- although improvements in performance have to m ade by, e.g., closer implementation of those systems to the RIS and PACS ar chitecture, and by employing high-grade image compression.