Understanding the PACS Architecture
February 27th, 2011 -- Posted in PACS Architecture | No Comments »Just like many other information systems, PACS or Picture Archiving and Communication System is designed to work in three main stages. If you plan on using a reliable PACS data storage solution as part of your radiology workflow, understanding these stages is certainly necessary.
The first stage in PACS architecture is image acquisition. For hospitals and practices that use diagnostic tools supporting DICOM image format such as CT modality or MR modality, the PACS solution can be integrated directly. This means all captured diagnostic images will be streamed directly to the PACS data storage server for further processing.
The second stage is of course image archiving. The captured images are tagged using predetermined parameters. Medical personnel operating the diagnostic tools will be asked to enter the patient’s ID and several other basic information so that the PACS data storage server can archive medical images accordingly.
When doctors and physicians need to access the stored medical images, all they need to do is issue a request using the PACS user interface. The retrieved medical images will then be processed by the storage server before they are displayed on screen as requested. Further accesses such as printing or emailing are also possible.