High-performance clinical patient data review and consultation system.

ABSTRACT

Primary care physicians rely on specialists. Specialists are too expensive to be located at every clinical site requiring a practical means for specialists to help without requiring patients or specialists to travel for consultation. To address the challenge of providing primary care physician access to specialists, we are developing a clinical prototype system for the high-speed access and transfer of patient data and images within Radiology Departments, Medical Centers and Health Care Networks. The key components of the system are a high-bandwidth network (100 Mbit/s upgradeable to ATM); an image server system with a 30-60 day patient image on-line archive ( < 10 sec. recall) coupled with a long term archive; viewing consoles matching existing film display paradigms located within the medical center and clinics providing rapid access to patient data and diagnostic images for house staff (OR/ER/ICU); clinician access to the image archive on a consultation basis in office computers; and image review applications which closely follow the established paradigms used by clinicians. Using our system primary care physicians can rapidly review patient data locally obtaining additional consultation from tertiary sites while the patient is present. Clinics and outlying medical centers gain rapid access to specialists with physicians in different cities discussing patient diagnostic and management issues in a shared environment leading to instantaneous data analysis and diagnosis further reducing health care costs and enhancing patient care.