Exploiting distributed medical image database systems-general considerations and implementation experience

Addresses a distributed approach for medical image database systems and its implementation. Compared with a centralized approach, distributed strategy has the advantage of fault-tolerance, ease of integration, lower network traffic and faster system response. Various practical aspects of the system design with respect to data storage hierarchy, image format, system communication and resource sharing are discussed. An implementation example which incorporates cardiac MR, CT and nuclear medicine imaging systems is presented. The system is based on a Novell and TC/PIP local area network. It has also been further integrated into a hospital information system which controls the patient registration and resource allocation