A distributed heterogeneous image server

Digital image transmission is now ubiquitous across computer networks and thus there is increasing pressure to allow access to medical image data at sites remote from PACS locations. In fact, it may soon make economic sense to outsource medical image services - to dedicated service providers at geographical locations outside of the traditional radiology department or HIS’s. The technical challenge faced by system developers is to produce client-Viewer/server-PACS configurations that can realistically span the network. In particular, the systems must provide the performance usually expected by client medics and it must be flexible to the needs of the service providers. At CRS4 - BioMedical Applications - we are integrating various technologies derived from the www-intranet field, and object-oriented middleware to prototype technological solutions that address both the issues of performance and flexibility. These are discussed in turn below; then we provide an overview of our system