Design and implementation of picture archiving and communication system in Huadong hospital

Huadong hospital in Shanghai with 700 beds provides health care services for inpatients and outpatients, as well as special senior and VIP patients. In order to move to digital imaging based radiology practice, and also provide better intra-hospital clinical services for senior and VIP patients, we started designing and planning PACS implementation from September of 1999. Based on the radiology service model and current workflow in Huadong hospital, we implemented PACS in following steps: In phase I, we designed PALS infrastructure and implemented PACS networks connecting to most digital modalities, reading rooms and clinical buildings, we also built NT-based module PALS for every kind of digital imaging modality with DICOM communication capability. In phase II, we developed an UNIX based PACS central server connecting to the individual module PACS for image routing, querying and retrieving among different departments and modality sections, and also installed specially designed interactive teleconsultation display workstations in radiology sections and clinical departments for consultation services. In phase III, we will integrate RIS into PACS infrastructure to optimize PACS dataflow and improve radiology workflow to achieve better performance and more efficient services. In this presentation, we will also discuss the PACS design strategies and implementation methods in Huadong hospitals to decrease the risks and to increase the positive responses from the partners and end users.