The web browser as a unifying agent for radiology and the health care enterprise

A variety of information systems in the health care enterprise are used to store patient information. The hospital information system (HIS), the pictu re archiving and communications system (PACS), the radiology information sy stems (RIS), and patient records, for example, are often supported by separ ate and distinct systems. A referring physician reviewing a radiologist's r eport often does not have convenient access to the original radiologic imag es. A radiologist interpreting a radiologic examination may not have conven ient access to clinical information generated outside of the radiology depa rtment. Clearly, convenient and quick access to all relevant patient inform ation is the ideal in delivering quality patient care. Recently, the web br owser has become increasingly well accepted as the "universal client" for v iewing a wide variety of information. We believe that the web browser may p rovide the universal "window" to the variety of distinct information source s required by the physician, and may provide unification of these informati on sources through hypertext links. We specifically looked at the feasibili ty of using the web browser to view scanned patient charts. A total of 5,20 0 patient charts (131,000 pages) were scanned into a structured query langu age (SQL) database. Access to these records was made available on the hospi tal local area network (LAN), and on the Internet over the worldwide web. C omparison measurements were made of the time required to access patient rec ords using a dedicated viewing application and using a web browser. Copyrig ht (C) 2000 by W.B. Saunders Company.