Workstation network system which enables international exchange of characters and images at the University of Tokyo Hospital.

The circumstances when physicians want to exchange information are analyzed and the necessary requirements for workstations are discussed. Although there are many requirements, it will not be necessary to incorporate every requirement onto a single workstation. In the international setting, the capability of handling non-alphabetic characters is also important. The requirements for image display should be classified for those physicians who make their diagnosis primarily on the basis of images and those who use images as additional diagnostic information. On the basis of these discussions, the system of the University of Tokyo Hospital, which is now being implemented, is described. The system will be a network of approximately 300 workstations with one mainframe computer.