DICOM Web Viewers: Modern Solutions for Modern Medicine

About one hundred years ago, x-rays allowed medical professionals to see inside the human body without invasive surgery for the first time. Throughout most of the 20th Century, viewing such medical images required a full range of photographic darkroom equipment, materials and expensive chemicals. Today however, the DICOM web viewer has made all of that obsolete – and lowered many of the operational costs associated with health care, increasing profitability.
Web Based PACS

The first digital PACS server (Picture Archive and Communication System) was installed at the Radiology Department of the Ohio State University Medical Center in 1992. The cost for such a web PAC system at that time was prohibitive, exceeding a quarter-million dollars. Nonetheless, the OSUMC PACS server has since paid for itself four times while saving in excess of 7000 physician hours in diagnosis of disease.

The good news is that the same economic trends that have driven down the cost of personal computers has also lowered the costs of web based PACS. Today, even public health clinics and small, under-funded rural facilities as well as veterinary clinics can obtain a DICOM Web viewer for as little as $5000.
The Web PAC Advantage

The advantage of web based PACS cannot be overstated. Consider the expense of traditional film development as well as the time and space required for archiving such images. Web based DICOM viewer systems eliminate all of that. Web PAC systems from DICOM mean that images in any modality – whether MRI, EEG, CT or even x-ray can be viewed on any PC monitor without the necessity of complicated software. Web based DICOM viewers are user friendly, allow for real-time collaboration and consultation over the Internet, and can be used to create digital archives of patient records that include Web PAC images.

DICOM web viewers are in stock and available from the top manufacturers in the health care industry today. Visit DICOM on the World Wide Web and learn for yourself how DICOM web viewers can help your health care facility to deliver better services at a lower cost.

Jonathon Blocker writes about DICOM web viewer. With installations at over 450 imaging centers and hospitals; Dicom Solutions is one of the leading distributors in the medical imaging industry.