DICOM network implementation and usage in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed number of problems in the global medical system. This article is targeted to show solutions based on the technical information technologies to help patients, medical professionals and institutions for using DICOM Network application in the context of special requirements during pandemic. The objective of the study was to show how to minimize contacts with the patients by using telemedicine and online consultations based on the information technologies solutions. Material and methods. The data used in this study are based on the DICOM Network informational system, that is targeted to collect medical images based on DICOM format. This system collects all type of DICOM investigations, including tomography investigations, X-Ray images, ultrasonography and others. The average flow of the data is about 10 TB per year. In this study, we used input data collected by this system from 4 medical institutions. Results. There were defined the gaps in the existing software solutions for telemedicine. Based on the existing workflow analysis and urgent requirements of the medical institutions with COVID-19 patients, it was implemented a set of new modules and functionalities for existing DICOM Network system to limit direct contacts with the patients and to reduce the costs of the imaging investigations. Conclusions. All the DICOM Network changes were done in parallel with the spreading of the pandemic “on the fly”, but all the functionalities were implemented in time and have helped, on one hand, to reduce the direct contact of physicians with the infected patients and, on the other hand, to reduce the costs for an investigation for about 2 EUR per investigations and 3000 EUR per month only for X-Ray investigations for COVID-19 patients.