Pediatric PACS, Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital at Karolinska hospital, Stockholm, technical and practical aspects

We present a filmless pediatric radiology department for the Stockholm area (1.8 million inhabitants) producing 50 000 examinations per year. Seventy percent of the examinations are non scheduled, 50% are emergency cases out of office hours. The system is designed for high reliability operating with 99.7% uptime. A large number of daily conferences are held throughout the Children's Hospital at the various specialized departments, distributed thr ough the intranet, with one pediatric radiologist attending. Instant readin g is made in the majority of examinations and reports are available with im ages throughout the hospital including PC's at doctors rooms. The system us es conventional hardware and software with an open systems standard based a pproach. The system is highly appreciated by clinicians and has improved av ailability of radiology information. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.