A computer-assisted radiology reporting and retrieval system.

In the first half of 1979 a market study was made of various existing radiology reporting systems. Since no existing system was acceptable or available in Dutch, the decision was taken to develop our own system and to tackle the problem in a progressive way. Use is made of a dedicated HP minicomputer which is linked with other HP computers in a star-network. The reporting subsystem is developed with the following main features: report entry is done by the radiologist on standard CRT terminals in a conversational manner with predefined and user-determined branching. Entry is done through a menu-selection method. By means of subsequent menu’s the radiologist is guided in a systematic way to select preassembled, standard statements for normal and also for abnormal findings. The menu selected computer report codes are stored in an IMAGE data base and are accessible via a query language.