Research News: 2002 - 2003 - 2004

Clinical PACS Group
Author: Robert G. Gould, ScD

The Clinical PACS group had an eventful year. The good news is that the new version of software for our commercial PACS was installed with minimal disruption and has been working well. Unfortunately, we were saddened by the news that David Avrin, a co-director of the group, decided to leave UCSF and unite his family in Utah. David's contributions as a leader and a friend cannot be replaced. We both miss him and wish him well.

While our case volume continues to expand as does our data volume, the PACS has managed well. The upgrade to our Agfa system, which included both software and a change in the display platforms from Sun Unix to PC NT, was critical to our successful handling of the data volume and our ability to expand the number of displays. There are currently 54 thick client displays deployed both within radiology and in some high-image volume locations throughout the hospital. With the exception of mammography, all imaging within radiology is now digital. The last location using film, an outpatient Medical Office Building on Divisadero Street, now has a Fuji CR system. Some older modalities, such as our Siemens PET, which initially were difficult to connect to PACS, are now successfully connected. One digital mammographic unit, a GE Senographe, does connect to the PACS for image archive but its images are interpreted softcopy on a dedicated GE display. Another challenging area is biplane neuroangiography; the equipment is connected to the PACS, but the need for film remains.

This year, the Radiology Department received approval to purchase 100 PCs for the purpose of web access to images. While interpretation within radiology is filmless, the demand for images outside the confines of radiology results in considerable film production. One limitation to web access has been the inadequate number of PCs throughout the enterprise, such as in patient exam rooms, where referring physicians like to show images to patients. The Medical Center's Information Technology group is installing the new PCs in locations identified by Radiology. These PCs connect to the hospital backbone and allow secure image access from our web server.
In addition, we added a CD burner system to the film library so that patients or others needing films' can instead get their images on CD, which comes with a viewer also burned onto the CD.

Clinical PACS Group:
Standing (from left): Robert Gould, PhD, Albert Wong, Christopher Jovais, Mark Day, David Huber, Howard Kwong, David Luth, Wyatt Tellis, Chip Augello, Jon Seong
Seated (from left): Todd Bazzill, Katherine Andriole PhD, Agustus C. De Guzman

The Clinical PACS group, in addition to the departure of David Avrin, has had other personnel changes. Laura Moore is now our administrative assistant and Jonathan Seong has joined the group as a programmer analyst. They join the remaining members: David Luth; Gus DeGuzman; Albert Wong; Mark Day, who is responsible for software development; and Todd Bazzill, who is in charge of our networks and system maintenance. The faculty is comprised of Drs. Kathy Andriole, Bob Gould and Ron Arenson. Also important to the group is our full-time Agfa service engineer, David Huber. Agfa, our commercial partner in PACS, also provides us with a part-time development engineer, Chip Augello, who is new this year.

UCSF Web PACS