Integration of federated medical systems for vendor neutral image access in teleradiology applications

This paper proposes a framework designed to interconnect medical imaging facilities and teleradiology service providers on a single access interface. This framework aims to solve the interoperability issues of Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), Radiology Information System (RIS) and Hospital Information System (HIS) developed by different vendors and enrich the digital health record delivered to non-local radiologists or physicians with the integrated information from several systems. This is achieved by introducing a "Grid Agent" into the domain of medical software systems, which seamlessly integrates with present systems and forms a network to deliver data between other Grid Agents and the "Grid Manager". Resultant solution decreases the access time of medical images by non-local medical staff and increases the efficiency and durability of the teleradiology service architecture.