[Establishment of an emergency CT service by means of teleradiology].

UNLABELLED

The teleradiological connection between the University Hospital in Innsbruck, Tyrol, and the Regional Hospital in Zwettl, Lower Austria, is presented as an example of a routine online connection of two helical CT systems.

PURPOSE

To establish a practicable and cost-efficient emergency CT service in a remote hospital during night time and on weekends.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Online connection of a GE HiSpeed Advantage-Spiral-CT and a GE Prospeed-Spiral-CT via two Sun SPARC 10 work stations and ISDN.

RESULTS

The transmission of 121 CT data sets from 116 patients revealed a sufficiently fast average transmission time of 15 (6-53) minutes and average transmission costs of DM 9.00 per examination. The system was technically reliable, cost-efficient and practicable in clinical routine application.

CONCLUSIONS

Teleradiology enables remote hospitals to provide an emergency CT service even if there is no radiological specialist available outside office hours. Thus time-consuming and cost-intensive patient transfers and delay of therapy can be reduced.