PACS in Toolo Hospital

A 3-year PACS project was started in 1997 and completed in 1999 with filmle ss radiology and surgery. An efficient network for transferring images prov ides the infrastructure for integration of different distributed imaging sy stems and enables efficient handling of all patient-related information on one display station. Because of the need for high-speed communications and the massive amount of image data transferred in radiology, ATM (25, 155 Mbi t/s) was chosen to be the main technology used. Both hardware and software redundancy of the system have been carefully planned. The size of the Dicom image library utilizing MO discs is currently 1.2 TB with 300 GB RAID capa city. For the increasing amount of teleradiologic consultations, a special Dicom gateway is planned. It allows a centralized and resilient handling an d routing of received images around the hospital. Hospital-wide PACS has al ready improved the speed and quality of patient care by providing instant a ccess to diagnostic information at multiple locations simultaneously. The b enefits of PACS are considered from the viewpoint of the entire hospital: P ACS offers a method for efficiently transporting patient-related images and reports to the referring physicians. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd . All rights reserved.