An evaluation group based at St George's Hospital in south
London has identified a way of storing medical images without using
proprietary medical imaging systems.
The Department of Health has set a deadline of 2006 for all NHS
trusts to move film-based archiving of medical images into an
electronic format called Picture Archiving and Communication
Systems (Pacs).
In a forthcoming report Pacsnet, an evaluation group supported by
the Medical Devices Agency on behalf of the Department of Heath,
will advise NHS trusts on how to implement systems based on storage
area networks.
The group has identified a Storage Network Industry Alliance
specification that NHS IT managers can use to help them meet the
health department's deadline for electronic archiving of medical
images.
Dewinder Bhachu, head of Pacsnet, said the storage requirements for
medical images differed from trust to trust and was dependent on
criteria such as the types of studies individual trusts conducted,
their expertise and their catchment area.
"The alliance model will help NHS IT managers compare products
like-for-like," he said.
The specification, called the Shared Storage Model, provides
reference models for different storage architectures.
Alan McBride, senior evaluator at Pacsnet, said the specification
would help NHS trusts determine the architecture they need and
their network storage requirements.