ATL begins shipping networked Access

The battle in ultrasound miniPACS just got a little hotter. Ultrasoundvendor ATL of Bothell, WA, has begun shipments of the long-awaitednetworked version of its Access ultrasound image management system.Access will compete with Acuson's Aegis, ALI's UltraPACS and severalother systems in the increasingly visible miniPACS segment.

ATL earlier this year began shipping Access systems that usedisk-based media rather than networks for image transfer. ATLofficials have stated that the company chose to delay the marketintroduction of Access in order to build the system's architecturearound the ACR-NEMA's DICOM 3.0 standard (SCAN 2/1/95). Accessuses the DICOM standard internally as its native networking protocol,rather than using proprietary internal architecture with a DICOMgateway.

While the systems from Acuson and ALI have a head start onAccess in the market, ATL hopes that its product's support ofthe DICOM standard will enable it to leapfrog the competition.ATL expects to have 25 systems installed by year end, accordingto Victor Reddick, senior vice president.