An Open Source PACS study

14.06.2006

Abstract:
This thesis presents a study of OSS (Open Source Software) and PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication Systems). A description of both OSS and PACS is first presented. We also describe an experiment conducted at UNN (University hospital of North-Norway), of a deployment of such a system. The backbone of the study consisted of secondary data collection, informal interview with staff at UNN, and a usability test of the deployed system. The conclusions drawn in this thesis states that the best way to introduce OSS PACS is to have several health care environments cooperate in solving a common problem in PACS by further developing existing OSS PACS components. They would thus be able to share the costs of development, and the risk of maintaining the product in the future.