The web browser as a unifying agent for radiology and the health care enterprise.

A variety of information systems in the health care enterprise are used to store patient information. The hospital information system (HIS), the picture archiving and communications system (PACS), the radiology information systems (RIS), and patient records, for example, are often supported by separate and distinct systems. A referring physician reviewing a radiologist's report often does not have convenient access to the original radiologic images. A radiologist interpreting a radiologic examination may not have convenient access to clinical information generated outside of the radiology department. Clearly, convenient and quick access to all relevant patient information is the ideal in delivering quality patient care. Recently, the web browser has become increasingly well accepted as the "universal client" for viewing a wide variety of information. We believe that the web browser may provide the universal "window" to the variety of distinct information sources required by the physician, and may provide unification of these information sources through hypertext links. We specifically looked at the feasibility of using the web browser to view scanned patient charts. A total of 5,200 patient charts (131,000 pages) were scanned into a structured query language (SQL) database. Access to these records was made available on the hospital local area network (LAN), and on the Internet over the worldwide web. Comparison measurements were made of the time required to access patient records using a dedicated viewing application and using a web browser.