Cardiac picture archiving and communication systems and telecardiology-technologies awaiting adoption

Abstract

Diagnostic and therapeutic procedures associated with cardiology are heavily supported by diagnostic imaging technology. The management of such images, including radiographs, echocardiography examinations and cardiac angiography studies, requires a suitable means of handling the data. A number of manufacturers are now offering picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) and telecardiology options. These could greatly improve the efficiency of data management for cardiac examinations, including linkage to radiology and hospital information systems and electronic patient records. A barrier to the implementation of cardiac PACS has been the relatively high capital cost. There have also been technical difficulties in implementing a suitable interface. Historical problems have included 'turf wars' between different specialist groups and a reluctance to shift from well established practice patterns. Early cooperative work between radiologists and cardiologists in the development of coronary arteriography has been replaced by contention between cardiologists, radiologists and vascular surgeons, often driven by economic considerations rather than the needs of the patient. At this stage, cardiac PACS and telecardiology have great potential for improving the coordinated care of cardiac patients in Australia.

Automating object-oriented integration and visualization of multidisciplinary biomedical data in radiology workflow: Compartmental PACS model

“…Similar suggestions for multi-departmental PACS have been given in the literature (Bergh 2006;Crowe and Hailey 2002;Brennecke et al 1992). The implementation of a web-based multi-agent architecture proves that the introduction of common healthcare standard is beneficial to the exchange of health records among multiple patient repositories (Choe and Yoo 2008).…”

“…Having these strategic sakes, the implementation of the compartmental PACS at PolyU proved streamlined clinical dataflow with substantial cost reduction, effectively addressing the issues pointed out in the literature (Crowe and Hailey 2002).…”

Work practice changes caused by the introduction of a picture archiving and communication system

“…The introduction of the PACS has affected the work practices of many users, including radiologists, radiographers, nurses and doctors. A literature study [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] indicated that understanding work practice changes and clinicians' acceptance of the changes is critical for the successful integration of a PACS into clinicians' work practice. The rapid delivery of X-ray images to clinicians is critical for timely diagnoses and treatment.…”

Optimizing the Interventional Cardiology Facility: Services Integration in Routine Workflow

“…Despite intensive research in this direction, theadoptionofsuch systems in everydayworkflowislimited [5,6],mainlydue to substantial difficulties in thei ntegrationo f services [7,8]. While expensived edicated data sharing systems are devoid of distrib-utingand integrating capabilities [9,10], the employmento fa lreadya vailable connections often suffers from inadequate bandwidth, thus precluding real-time imagesharing [11].Moreover, vendor-orplatform-dependent solutions resulti na dditional costs andl imited expandability [5,12].H ence, most of the current projects are based mainly on twos imple modes:" store and forward" and "real-time" videoconferencing [13].…”