Electronic medical imaging technologies are becoming
increasingly sophisticated, directlycontributing to improved
patient care. Specifically, hospital networks are integrating
higherimage resolutions with picture archiving and communications
systems (PACS). Thisintegration not only extends the ability of
physicians to diagnose and treat previouslyundetected medical
conditions, but also provides rapid access and retrieval of
patientimages by emergency physicians and surgeons working under
critical, time-sensitivesituations.
The overall demand for cardiovascular procedures is on the rise
around the world. In part,this is due to the growing population of
older patients who are more susceptible to physicaldiseases and
chronic ailments, and also the success of interventional
cardiovasculardiagnostic and acute care procedures. As a result,
the adoption of cardiology PACS amongmedical providers is
increasing rapidly and contributing to the dramatic rise in the
demandfor archive storage. Because of the ”always-on” accessibility
and rapid response madepossible by online media, cardiology PACS
are a “must-have” technology in cardiovascularcare.
Not only are cardiology labs producing more diagnostic images
over time, but many of thelabs have upgraded from the older 512 x
512 pixel matrix with an 8-bit image format andare starting to use
higher 1024 x 1024 image matrix formats on the flat
panelcardiovascular x-ray equipment used in many of the
catheterization (cath) labs. As a resultof using the higher image
matrix frames, the average catheterization procedure nowrequires
500 megabytes of storage space, doubling the average 250 megabytes
perprocedure used in 2002. By 2010, the average catheterization
procedure is expected toexpand to 725 megabytes per procedure,
representing another 45 percent increase. As apoint of reference,
current cath procedures require ten times more storage than
theaverage radiology image file of 50 megabytes.