Design and Performance Evaluation of Picture Archival and Communication Systems

Abstract

A simulation method for performance estimation and dimensioning a medical picture archival and communications system (PACS) is introduced. The introduced method makes use of a source layer model to simulate the behavior of a typical PACS user and server. As a case study for the application of the proposed methodology, the problem of dimensioning the PACS of a radiology department with a multitude of users and modalities is considered. Furthermore, the effect of additional database servers on the system performance is considered. Results are presented for two cases: i) for the system with radiologists, modalities, and database server(s); ii.) with modality traffic postponed to off hours, i.e., for the system with database server(s) and radiologists onl y.