Distributed approach for the development of integrated applications in PACS

Recent PACS experiences have highlighted the critical aspects of PACS design. Three main topics are concerned: i) the communication issues, ii) the management of data and iii) the system setting-up and evaluation methodologies; whereas the first and the third aspects are widely presented in the literature, the second one is less discussed in papers although it may have important repercussions on the whole system design. In this paper, we deeply analyse the problem of access to image data from the functional, architectural and implementation viewpoints. The current trends investigated within the SIRENE environment are presented: the proposed solution combines a centralized management of archives with basic indexing and retrieval capabilities and a distributed management of applications on the workstations, offering a good flexibility for the development of specific applications suitable in the various medical departments.