This three-year project addresses the need to develop the architectures and distributed system software in Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) and Global PACS. PACS environments are a sub-class of a much larger class of image database systems, distributed over a local and national geographical area. PACS have been researched since the early 1980's and are currently being developed for use in medical imaging and hospital environments. In a PACS, the patient information and digital images are generated every time a patient experiences a procedure on a medical imaging equipment, such as an x-ray, computed tomography (CTSCAN), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines. The information and images are transferred through a high speed network to a database archive system, where the data are later retrieved into the radiologist's high resolution workstation for diagnosis. In a Global PACS, the data may be transferred and retrieved across country between PACS and national archive centers. In this research project, the existence of local PACS in various hospitals around the country is assumed, and the project is developing the interconnection methods into the NSFNET and the distributed system software to implement a prototype Global PACS environment.***
