PACS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

PACS - Essay Example A PACS consists of at least one or more image acquisition devices (like Computed Tomography Scanners, Ultrasound Scanners, MRI), communication network, a long term storage device and an image review and/or post processing workstation, in other words PACS is used to run medical digital images. All these components enable following processes: image acquisition, image  communication, image storage, image display and image processing. All these processes act as pathways for PACS to improve the quality of diagnosis, extend the reach of services of an expert radiologist, higher efficiency and cost savings (Reiner and Siegel, 2002, 3). Since healthcare is a safety as well as security intense domain, these parameters cannot be compromised. Hence saving and archiving medical images without loosing quality (or information) has been a compelling need of the users of various users dealing with medical images. This concern of the clinicians have been appropriately addressed by a universal standard pertaining to digital medical imaging, this standard is termed as Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (popularly called DICOM). DICOM provides all the tools required for diagnostically correct processing and presentation of medical imaging data (Pianykh). DICOM takes care of data transfer, storage and display protocol that contains sets of standards. DICOM incorporates the following processes: Information Management System  Storage, Query/Retrieve,   Study Component, Query/Retrieve, Results Management, Print Management, Media Exchange. The DICOM Standard takes care of levels of the ISO OSI network model and enables the exchange of information on interchange media. DICOM currently defines an upper layer protocol (ULP) that is used over TCP/IP (independent of the physical network), messages, services, information objects and an association negotiation mechanism. These definitions ensure that any two implementations of a compatible set of services and