1. Image Archiving, Retrieval, Viewing & PACS – A Personal View! Andy Kettle Nuclear Medicine East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust

2. PACS Is Just….. A picture repository A large data store Pretty thick as a computer systems go Immature RIS/PACS not yet nuclear medicine compliant Too reliant on a still evolving Dicom standard

3. PACS Limitations… Image display only Unable to recall data to modality workstations Nuclear medicine low priority in RIS/PACS

4. Local Need For… Reviewing current patients studies with old Reprocessing New algorithms/methodology Audit R&D Previous processing suspect Reprinting/image transfer Patient referral Legal cases Medical meetings

5. What We Have… Archived data going back to 1990 ADAC pegasys + Siemens icon file formats On 3 different media over 3 hospital sites

6. What We Need … Robust on line archive that … Stores data in proprietary file format Able to recall proprietary files to corresponding workstation for re-analysis Able to view stored image data independent of platform Able to output DICOM files

7. The Solution… 1.6 terabyte RAID [SuSe Linux] Pukka-J’s Dicom explorer

8. Benefits… Creating a robust archive Can always access the original proprietary file Can rebuild Dicom database as Dicom develops Images viewable on all hospital sites Can add proprietary file conversion if required in the future

9. How It Works… Locally written scripts move the last days images to the archive every night Raid has a directory for each site This could be sub divided to file platform Pukka-j software makes a Dicom copy into a global directory

10. Is It Perfect??? Nearly!! Only as good as the quality of demographic data entry Hopeful this will improve with Dicom work lists ADAC Genesys acquisition bug!! Local scripts need more error alerts/checks Hospital network issues to address with PACS implementation

11. Is It Perfect??? Like RIS/PACS it needs hands-on management Pukka-J’s Dicom explorer Supports all imaging modalities Transaxial displays etc Benefits of dealing with a small company Incorporated our commonly used Pegasys colour tables Developing home reporting package Create generic patches

12. Did I Make the Right Decision?