A DICOM document-oriented approach to PACS infrastructure

The need for long-term storage requires the future migration of image data from a PACS to its successor system. This paper considers the cost of such migration. It is proposed that storage of data as “documents” in DICOM Part 10 formats on industrystandard media could reduce the time and cost of data migration relative to on-line DICOM transfer. The relation to present efforts in developing document-oriented electronic patient records is discussed. DICOM Part 10 files are found to be a sufficient representation of image documents, but additional software tools will be needed to reach its full potential. There is a significant cost benefit of the document storage method, but it is one of many factors which must be balanced in the selection of a PACS.