Update on digital image management and PACS

Information technology is becoming a vital component of all health care ent erprises, from managed care services to large hospital networks, that provi des the basis of electronic patient records and hospital-wide information. The rationale behind such systems is deceptively simple: physicians want to sit down at a single workstation and call up all information, both clinica l data and medical images, concerning a given patient. Picture archiving an d communication systems (PACS) are responsible for solving the problem of a cquiring, transmitting, and displaying radiologic images. The major benefit of PACS resides in its ability to communicate images and reports to referr ing physicians in a timely and reliable fashion. With the changes in econom ics and the shift toward managed and capitated care, the teleradiology comp onent of PACS is rapidly gaining momentum. In allowing remote coverage of m ultiple sites by the same radiologists and remote consultations and expert opinion, teleradiology is in many instances the only option to maintain eco nomically viable radiologic settings. The technical evolution toward more i ntegrated systems and the shift toward Web-based technology is rapidly merg ing the two concepts of PACS and teleradiology in global image management a nd communication systems.