PACS experiences in Trieste.

The installation of a commercial PACS in the Hospitals of Trieste has been the start-point for a project of technology assessment, aimed at the evaluation of technical, clinical and economic aspects related to the introduction of this new and expensive technology in the health care system. During more than two years of use of this system in the clinical environment, several research activities have been carried out concerning the analysis of the organization of radiology departments in Italy, the analysis of work and data volumes, the evaluation of technical and clinical performances of PACS versus conventional film-based radiology, the integration between PACS and RIS, the experimentation of teleradiology applications. An overview of the most important activities and related results is given in this paper as well as some indications about future developments of the Trieste Project.

[Evaluation of the role of mammography and echography in breast diseases in a controlled caseload].

Data concerning patients who underwent mammography and breast ultrasonography and then breast surgery were collected and analyzed with a computer archive system. In previous papers the authors reported both design and implementation of the computer archive and analyzed the results concerning uncontrolled collected data; in the present paper data concerning controlled cases are evaluated, distinguishing between symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. Asymptomatic patients represented 92% of the whole evaluated population.

[Modular project of the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS). Preliminary operational experience. I].

Since september 1988 a PAC System (Comm View by AT & T and Philips) has been operating in the Radiology Department of the University Hospital, Trieste. A research project is presently in progress aiming at providing factual evidence for the evaluation of this kind of systems as far as operational, technical, clinical and economic aspects are concerned. The general approach to this research consists in implementing and monitoring a PACS in a stepwise way, starting with a small system connected to some digital modalities only, in order to test the feasibility and effectiveness of the system within a Radiology Department, and to test the possibility of matching the PACS to the Radiological System.

[Modular project of the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS). Preliminary clinical experience. II].

In the previous paper in this volume the PAC System installed in the Radiology Department of the University of Trieste has been described and its advantages and limitations have been analyzed, mainly from an operational point of view. This paper deals with the clinical evaluation of the system in ordinary operative conditions. A series of cases with specific characteristics was monitored in order to reveal different performances in both diagnostic process and conclusions using the PACS viewing console (DW) vs.