Virtual management of radiology examinations in the virtual radiology environment using common object request broker architecture services

Abstract

In the Department of Defense (DoD), US Army Medical Command is now embarking on an extremely exciting new project---creating a virtual radioiogy environment (VRE) for the management of radiology examinations. The business of radiology in the military is therefore being reengineered on several fronts by the VRE Project. In the VRE Project, a set of intelligent agent algorithms determine where examinations are to routed for reading bases on a knowledge base of the entire VRE. The set of algorithms, called the MetaManager, is hierarchical and uses object-based communications between medical treatment facilities (MTFs) and medical centers that have digital imaging network picture archiving and communications systems (DIN-PACS) networks. The communications is based on use of common object request broker architecture {CORBA) objects and services to send patient demographics and examination images from DIN-PACS networks in the MTFs to the DIN-PACS networks at the medical centers for diagnosis. The Meta-Manager is also responsible for updating the diagnosis at the originating MTF. CORBA services are used to perform secure message communications between DIN-PACS nodes in the VRE network. The Meta-Manager has a fail-safe architecture that allows the master MetaManager function to fioat to regional Meta-Manager sites in case of server failure. A prototype of the CORBA-based Meta-Manager is being developed by the University of Arizona's Computer Engineering Research Laboratory using the unified modeling language (UML) as a design tool. The prototype will implement the main functions described in the MetaManager design specification. The results of this project are expected to reengineer the process of radiology in the military and have extensions to commercial radiology environments. Copyright 9 1999 by W.B. Saunders CompanyT HE US ARMY Great Plains Medical Command (GPRMC), led by the Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) has embarked on a futuristic project that will revolutionize the practice of teleradiology in the Department of Defense (DoD). The US Army virtual radiology environment (USAVRE) is a Continental United States (CONUS)-based network that connects all the Army's major medical centers and Regional Medical Commands (RMC). The purpose of the USAVRE is to improve the quality, access, and cost of radiology services in the Army via the use of state-of-the-art medical imaging, computer, and networking technologies. The VRE contains multimedia-viewing workstations for static and dynamic modality cases. 2 The storage and archiving systems are based on a distributed computing environment using common object request broker architecture (CORBA) middleware protocols. Collaborations between archive centers and viewing workstations are managed by CORBA functions and multimedia object streams. The candidates for the underlying telecommunications network include ah asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)-based backbone network (CBI-Net) that connects to the RMC regional networks and PACS networks at medical centers and RMC clinics and a...

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