Tamil Nadu will soon become the first state in the country to inaugurate a teleradiology system in all its government hospitals. Towards this end, the Computerised Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan machines in government hospitals in different districts will be virtually connected.
This system is set to link 58 CT scan and 18 MRI scan machines across the state.
According to a report in The Hindu, this teleradiology will enable uploading of scan images to a central server and any hospital that is connected to the network can access the image and provide a medical opinion.
Currently, hospitals without a radiologist have to physically carry the image to a nearby hospital.
“Networking all the CT and MRI machines will make this redundant. It will address shortage or absence of radiologists in hospitals and will greatly improve patient care, particularly road accident victims,” said Dr P Umanath, the Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation Limited.
Machines must be fitted with a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) to be able to share images with other machines.
As per the report, 50 machines already have PACS installed in them which will be useful when the machines are connected to each other.
The report also says that a dedicated tower for connectivity has been set up in each hospital to ensure rapid sharing of images.
The connectivity between hospitals has been enabled using a 2 MBPS internet leased line and each radiologist will be given a laptop with 4G connectivity to share the images.