Framework to Adopt Cloud Computing for Medical Image Archiving and Sharing
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2012-11
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Today’s best practices in medicine rely heavily on the use of diagnostic images and
reports, throughout the hospital and in nearly every part of the healthcare enterprise. Since
patients are nomadic in today’s healthcare environment there is a need to distribute and retrieve
images across different healthcare providers. This often requires the interaction of multiple
heterogeneous platforms. Multi-site implementations therefore require advanced integration
capabilities and excellent IT skills. In this context, outsourcing of computation and storage
resources using cloud infrastructure has become a potential alternative. Recently there has been
an increase in the number of organizations adopting and implementing Picture Archiving and
Communication Systems using cloud computing model.
The research paper discusses the advantages of cloud computing for healthcare and
specifically to medical imaging, the limitations of current IT utilization in healthcare
organizations. It also discusses standard, legal and compliance issues for healthcare data. By
doing so, this research set out to determine how a PACS can be implemented using cloud
computing architectures and implementation tools, and developing a framework that helps to
provide a complete and timely access to critical imaging/diagnostic information at the point of
care, regardless of the source, age or location of the information in an cloud environment. In
addition to the general framework to adopt cloud services, a design framework is developed in
order to provide medical image archiving and sharing solution as a service.
A rigorous analysis of the latest research on Cloud Computing as an alternative to IT
provision, management and security for medical image archive and sharing is done. It also took
into account the best practices for Cloud Computing usage within different hospitals and imaging
centers, by interviewing with selected radiologists, physicians and healthcare IT professionals.
The research finding shows that Cloud Computing is a potential alternative the
framework is useful to healthcare organizations for medical image archiving and sharing. The
paper finally recommends further research directions.
Key words: PACS, ICT, Cloud Computing.
Description
Keywords
PACS, ICT, Cloud Computing