Medical Image distribution and visualization in a hospital using CORBA

In this work it is presented the solution adopted by the Heart Institute (InCor) of Sao Paulo for medical image distribution and visualization inside the hospital´s intranet as part of the PACS system. A CORBA-based image server was developed to distribute DICOM images across the hospital together with the images´ report. The solution adopted allows the decoupling of the server implementation and the client. This gives the advantage of reusing the same solution in different implementation sites. Currently, the PACS system is being used on two different hospitals each one with three different environments: development, prototype and production.