The Implementation of Nation-wide Image Sharing System

Abstract Korea is one of the leading countries in PACS implementation, and over 15% of all hospitals has been introducing and running in PACS. With the support of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National Computerization of Agency and National Cancer Center had a plan to try integration of PACS with a purpose of sharing medical image information. The target hospitals have been selected with over 500 beds, and the distance between hospitals from 40km and to 250km. As the vendors of PACS and HIS that had implemented in target hospitals were different, the ‘sharing host’ has been developed for the purpose of their integration, which enables communication through DICOM and HL7. In order to monitor the communication among the sharing hosts, the ‘sharing center’ also has been developed. This project was completed by November 2002. We expected that approximate of 100 doctors including 50 radiologists would use this project, high patient’s satisfaction and the decrease in national insurance fee for test and evaluation period. This project is the first attempt that the government has tried to integrate the independent PACS and HIS. On the model of this project, the government will try to expand it through all nation-wide. Key Words : PACS, DICOM, HL7