Concurrent processing for picture archiving and communication system (PACS)

To improve medical services and reduce costs, we develop a framework of an advanced picture archival and communication system (PACS) where computational intensive algorithms are processed on a network of workstations. Although real-time processing of certain computational intensive tasks is generally not achievable in cluster environment, we demonstrate that reasonable speed improvement can be obtained to improve the system response time. This paper describes the concepts of advanced PACS in which multimedia annotations, computer aided image analysis, 3D visualisation and coding are integrated into PACS as a single entity. The proposed system is implemented using a client/server model on general purpose computing workstations. The experimental results and performance of our proposed system indicate that PACS could take advantage of recent advances in concurrent processing to include advance features, which would otherwise be found in high-end computer system only