Integration of clinical routine digital imaging and advanced image processing through PACS

The University Hospital Utrecht (UHU) has been the site for clinical evaluation of a prototype Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), as a part of the Dutch PACS project run by BAZIS, Philips Medical Systems and the UHU in the period 1986-1989. An extensive research program on '3D Computer Vision' has been launched. In the near future the 3D Computer Vision network will be connected with the miniPACS operational at the department of Nuclear Medicine, based on a Macintosh II network configuration connected to a number of gamma-cameras. In a further project we will assess the technology of cranial 3D imaging in a number of clinical applications by offering routinely 3D reconstructions based on high-resolution and thin-section CT data. The paper gives an account of these projects and how the interconnection by PACS in a later stage may give perspectives for the Medical Imaging Department as an advanced Medical Information Department for the whole hospital and beyond