Growth in data storage for digital medical imaging causing
interoperability problems
7 April 2009
The exponential growth of digitised medical images poses an immense
challenge in terms of management, compression and retrieval. It is
essential that image archive storage solution providers, picture
archiving and communication system (PACS) vendors and image modality
manufacturers become aware of the growing requirements of storage space,
says Frost & Sullivan in a new report.
The report, Strategic Outlook into Archive Requirements for Image
Management in Medical Imaging, finds that the total European
storage requirement in 2007 was 106,044 terabytes (TB). In this
research, Frost & Sullivan examines medical image storage markets in the
United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, Benelux and Italy.
"There is an increasing demand for digitising medical images as
opposed to the traditional film-based images," says Frost & Sullivan
Research Analyst Shriram Shanmugham. "Unlike film-based images, digital
images do not decay over time and can easily be stored for longer
periods of time. Digitised images require less inventory space and the
same image can be accessed by multiple physicians simultaneously."
"Moreover, the turn-around time from the initial meeting with the
physician to availing complete diagnosis is reduced. As a result,
patients can expect quicker appointments with physicians and they can
have permanent access to the images from remote sites.
"However, certain images are not DICOM compatible and require a
service-oriented approach in order to be archived. This is primarily
because evolving healthcare standards such as DICOM and HL7 are being
updated at a much slower pace than image archiving and image modality
technology.
"Other challenges include ensuring interoperability with
hospital-based information systems. Another issue is that diagnostic
procedures such as echo and angiogram generate a high resolution, large
file-size images, and their long retrieval times pose a concern for
hospitals.
"Some PACS vendors provide their own unique solution to archiving
images that are not DICOM compatible, while others think it is wise to
work around the evolving healthcare standards so that, in the future,
systems interoperability is streamlined. This trend of providing
solutions to images that are not DICOM compatible will be prevalent over
the next five to seven years."
The digitised medical imaging archives market requires complete
co-operation among the following three major industry participants: PACS
vendors, image modality manufacturers and storage solution providers.
Some PACS vendors have indicated that it would be convenient for them
if image modality manufacturers provided them with test data before an
image modality is released into the market. By having the test data
before hand, PACS vendors affirmed that they could easily establish
connectivity (interoperability) of their module with the image modality.
"Hospitals cannot afford to experience an image server downtime,"
concludes Shanmugham. "It is therefore essential that storage solution
providers devise innovative technology that obviates the possibility of
such server downtime."
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