PACS integration with non-standard HIS and RIS

Abstract. The PACS is not a simple storage system dedicated to the radiology department but, in a wider point of view, it can be considered as a stone of a more complex structure consisting in a complete integration of the databases of the hospital. All systems must be designed to become a piece of a complete system, that connects together more hospitals and organizations and allows, to each member, sharing exam and information after, of course, the digital authoring process. In our hospital, there is a complex situation because, as what usually happens in reality in most healthcare facilities, PACS systems are installed in an environment where RIS and HIS are produced by different vendors and are based on different technologies. In order to realize an architecture to distribute information in a web environment, RIS, HIS and PACS need to be strictly interconnected. For this reason it was decided to design a flexible bGateway SoftwareQ that we called bRadGateQ, to interface PACS to preexisting systems and realize a seamless architecture to distribute images and information in a web environment.