The ISIS Center at Georgetown University was the systems integrator for a project to design, develop, and implement a commercial off-the-shelf teleradiology system to support the US troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Computed radiography (CR), computed tomography (CT), film digitization (FD), and ultrasound (US) were the modalities to connect to the network. Dry laser printing and multiple display workstations were also part of the network. All systems were integrated into this network using the Digital Imaging Communications (DICOM) 3.0 standard. The modalities communicate to the workstations using the DICOM 3.0 standard and the workstations send images to the printers and other vendors' workstations using DICOM 3.0. Among the seven DICOM implementations encountered for this project, none were connected without modification to configuration files, changes or patches by vendors, or operational changes by the user. Some problems encountered include missing or ignored required data elements, padding data values, unique study identifiers to differentiate studies and images, and the use of application entity titles. This paper will discuss multi- vendor connectivity and describe the DICOM 3.0 inconsistencies which were encountered. It will also detail the problems encountered and how they were resolved, including the operational changes which were required and software fixes.

Date Published: 22 May 1997
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 3035, Medical Imaging 1997: PACS Design and Evaluation: Engineering and Clinical Issues, (22 May 1997); doi: 10.1117/12.274577

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3035:
Medical Imaging 1997: PACS Design and Evaluation: Engineering and Clinical Issues
Steven C. Horii M.D.; G. James Blaine, Editor(s)