[Clinical computer applications in the radiology department].

The information society is currently developing. In the field of radiology, the PACS (picture archiving and communication system) and teleradiology are widely employed in medical practice. The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) reported that physicians should consider some problems in Telemedicine in December 1997. The technology of storage media is improving and we encourage the standardization of data formatting and the transmission protocol to utilize medical electronic information. Several standards exist in the medical imaging field, the DICOM (digital imaging and communications in medicine) standard, the IS&C (image save and carry) standard and the Common Standard that the Medical Information System Development Center (MEDIS-DC) defined for the electronic storage. The PACS requires high transmission speed, integrated services digital network and an asynchronous transfer mode switching system. The MHW needed a technical requirement for the electronic image storage without films in March 1994. The requirement was divided into three parts, (1) security, (2) long-term reproducibility, (3) common usage. The MEDIS-DC published the Common Standards for electronic storage in 1996. When we use the PACS via network, we must consider the security. The present network may have low security, and falsification, such as illegal login may occur. In the future, these problems will be solved, and the network-wide PACS will likely become a commonly used system.