An open architecture for medical imaging systems

Integration of medical imaging is the goal of many standards. Interfile and Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standards have made great strides in this area. The impact of DICOM is greater owing to its wi der acceptance. However, the lack of conformance testing makes interoperabi lity difficult, often requiring expensive consulting teams in a mixed-vendo r environment. DICOM is difficult to learn and deploy because it does not u se modern software paradigms. Many hardware and software advances in comput er architectures and communications could greatly enhance diagnostic imagin g if they could be quickly incorporated into medical imaging standards. The se problems led to consideration of a solution able to take advantage of st ate-of-the-art technology and to allow diverse implementations while ensuri ng the accurate interchange of information between health care providers. I t is an object-oriented system information model, with the common object re quest broker architecture (CORBA) as the vehicle to ensure interoperability between different implementations of the model, This report presents the m odel, Copyright (C) 2000 by W.B. Saunders Company.