6 PACS & Informatics in Diagnostic Imaging

These flashcards cover key concepts related to PACS and Informatics in Diagnostic Imaging, focusing on their definitions, advantages, and roles within diagnostic imaging systems.

What does PACS stand for?

Picture Archiving & Communication System.

What is the primary function of PACS?

To receive, store, transmit, and distribute image studies to healthcare professionals.

What does RIS stand for?

Radiology Information System.

What information is stored in the RIS?

Radiology patient registration, billing, and scheduling information.

What is HIS and what does it do?

Hospital Information System; stores patient registration, billing, and scheduling information for all hospital departments.

What are the advantages of PACS?

Electronic movement of images, no darkroom issues, eliminates lost films, 24/7 image access, space reclamation.

What is meant by 'soft copy reading'?

Reading images from a monitor rather than film.

What is the 'modality worklist' feature in PACS?

It allows patient exam demographics and scheduling information to pass to the specific imaging modality.

What is the significance of the year 1990 in radiology workflow?

It marks the transition from film-based imaging to digital systems like PACS.

What is DICOM?

Digital Imaging & Communications in Medicine; a standard for handling, storing, and transmitting images.

What does AI stand for, and what does it refer to in the context of PACS?

Artificial Intelligence; refers to systems capable of gathering data and making decisions.

What are some examples of AI applications in radiology?

Finding lung nodules on CT scans, enhancing image processing, and detecting stroke in brain scans.

What is 'modality' in the context of imaging?

An image acquisition device like CT, MRI, or Ultrasound.

What is the purpose of compression in medical imaging?

To reduce the size of images and data sets for efficient storage and faster transfer.

What does HIPAA stand for?

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

What are clustered servers in PACS?

Several servers that share workloads and provide redundancy by backing each other up.

What is the disadvantage of using a centralized server in PACS?

It has a single point of failure and limited scalability.

What are some common HIS vendors mentioned?

Epic, Medi-Tech, and Cerner.

What is the purpose of voice recognition in radiology?

To convert spoken words into text, allowing for faster report creation without the need for transcription.

What is the goal of the Health Information Exchange (HIE)?

To enable secure sharing of medical records among multiple providers.

What are the advantages of PACS?

Electronic movement of images, no darkroom issues, eliminates lost films, 24/7 image access, space reclamation.

What is meant by 'soft copy reading'?

Reading images from a monitor rather than film.

What is the 'modality worklist' feature in PACS?

It allows patient exam demographics and scheduling information to pass to the specific imaging modality.

What is the significance of the year 1990 in radiology workflow?

It marks the transition from film-based imaging to digital systems like PACS.

What is DICOM?

Digital Imaging & Communications in Medicine; a standard for handling, storing, and transmitting images.

What does AI stand for, and what does it refer to in the context of PACS?

Artificial Intelligence; refers to systems capable of gathering data and making decisions.

What are some examples of AI applications in radiology?

Finding lung nodules on CT scans, enhancing image processing, and detecting stroke in brain scans.

What is 'modality' in the context of imaging?

An image acquisition device like CT, MRI, or Ultrasound.

What is the purpose of compression in medical imaging?

To reduce the size of images and data sets for efficient storage and faster transfer.

What does HIPAA stand for?

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

What are clustered servers in PACS?

Several servers that share workloads and provide redundancy by backing each other up.

What is the disadvantage of using a centralized server in PACS?

It has a single point of failure and limited scalability.

What is the purpose of voice recognition in radiology?

To convert spoken words into text, allowing for faster report creation without the need for transcription.

What is the goal of the Health Information Exchange (HIE)?

To enable secure sharing of medical records among multiple providers.

How do PACS, RIS, and HIS typically interact in a hospital workflow?

RIS handles scheduling and patient info, sending acquisition orders to PACS modalities via worklist. HIS manages broader hospital patient data, billing, and often interfaces with both RIS and PACS for comprehensive patient records.

What specific types of information does DICOM standardize, besides just imaging data?

DICOM standardizes patient demographics, study parameters, image acquisition details, reporting information, and workflow management data, ensuring interoperability between different systems.

What are the two main types of compression used in medical imaging, and what is the key difference between them?

The two types are lossless and lossy compression.

• Lossless compression: Allows for perfect reconstruction of the original image data without any loss of information, suitable for diagnostic images where all data is critical.

• Lossy compression: Achieves higher compression ratios by discarding some image data, resulting in a smaller file but with some irreversible loss of quality; not typically used for primary diagnostic images, but may be used for archiving or viewing copies.

Lossless compression

Allows for perfect reconstruction of the original image data without any loss of information, suitable for diagnostic images where all data is critical.

Lossy compression:

Achieves higher compression ratios by discarding some image data, resulting in a smaller file but with some irreversible loss of quality; not typically used for primary diagnostic images, but may be used for archiving or viewing copies.

Reading Station/MD Console

Workstation where radiologist interprets studies

Large hi-resolution & hi-brightness monitors (2-4)

View station

Where referring MD, nursing can view images on patient floors

Teleradiology

Sending images over telephone lines or via satellite

Web Server Access

Direct connection to PACS images through the internet

EMR

Electronic Medical Record

EHR

Electronic Health Record

Encryption

Encoding of data into an unreadable format

Firewall

A hardware device + software that isolates networks from other networks

GUI

Graphical User Interface

Prefetch

The ability of the PACS to selectively retrieve related studies to compare to the current study

HL-7

Health level 7; organization that develops standards for the electronic interchange of clinical, financial, and administrative information among independent computer systems

IHE

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise; seamless and secure sharing of information for optimal patient care through interoperability between vendors

Archive

Long term image storage; DVD or tape based

SAN

Storage Area Network

Interface

Software programming that allows 2 or more software applications to pass information between them (RIS and PACS)

CR

Computed radiography; images captured on photostimulable storage phosphor plates (cassette based)

DR

Direct plate based radiography (cassetteless)

What does CT stand for?

Computed Tomography.

What does MRI stand for?

Magnetic Resonance Imaging