A Study On Quality Assurance For PACS

Picture Archiving and Communication Systems, booming rapidly following the advances of technologies in digital imaging, computer and communication, has benefited us a lot, but is meanwhile challenging us with quality assurance.Radiology, having been developing over 100 years up to now, has got its quality systemized and standardized on conventional screen/film imaging system. At its primary stage, PACS manifests itself with lower standardization, poor compatibility, incompletion of data transmission and poor resolution of the soft-copy monitor, in general, short of uniform and standardized criteria on its quality assurance.In order to establish a complete system of quality assurance and promote the standardization and unification, we have studied PACS quality assurance system with regard to the main four parts it consists of.1. Image AcquisitionIt involves 4 approaches: DICOM acquisition, non-standard digital acquisition, video acquisition and film scanning. Here we just put our eyesight in this chapter on the study on digitizer and CR quality assurance on the grounds that such medical equipment as CT, MRI, SPECT, PET has been systemized and standardized. Therefore, we have focused on the effects of digitizer's resolution on clinical diagnosis, concluding that digitizer's resolution is supposed to reach 300dpi and meanwhile coming up with a complete system for film digitizer and CR quality control.2. Image Transmission and SavingThe large amount of medical imaging as well as its rapid growth pushes us compress images for the purpose of saving space and speeding up image transmission. In this chapter, we have explored the evaluation on lossy compression and studied comparatively the effects of CR and CT images compressions respectively. In addition, we have made a brief introduction of requirements for images transmission and saving in PACS.3. Image Display and ProcessionDisplay workstation, acting as the destination the data in PACS system flow into, is a window where PACS system is able to show its value. Its features evidently relate to the function of PACS system. No doubt, the quality assurance of display workstation is of dramatic significance. In this chapter, we begin with the quality assurance of display workstation from the angle of engineering technology; bring out a series of workable quality assurance. Then by clinically comparing IK and 2K monitor, color monitor and monochromatic monitor, we have worked out compatible monitor settings suitable for the situations in China. Consequently, we have concluded the requirements in features of display workstation.4. Image Output and PrintingThis chapter has introduced how to guarantee quality of laser camera.In this thesis, we have put forward the concept of PACS quality assurance. We have taken the lead to employ ROC approaches to film digitizer, quality evaluation of images compression and monitors. Furthermore, we have explored the quality assurance of film digitizer, CR and PACS monitors from the angle of engineering technology and established a series of workable quality assurance.