Hong Kong achieves wide regional image distribution

The Hong Kong Hospital Authority, which manages all 43 public hospitals in the region, has enabled widespread image distribution by integrating PACS into its electronic medical record.

All hospitals are connected over a wide area network by high-speed leased lines with bandwidths ranging from 50 Mbps for major acute facilities to 2 Mbps for smaller institutions.

Technically a "special administrative region," Hong Kong is leveraging the existing infrastructure through an integrated information approach called the Clinical Management System that enables timely delivery of radiology images to clinicians. The system includes a territory-wide longitudinal electronic patient record (Comput Med Imaging Graph 2005;29(2-3):137-142).

Image integration into the electronic patient record is achieved by sending the completed images from the local PACS to the archive and then providing a link from the patient record directly to the image. When a user clicks on an image icon in the patient record, the image viewer is launched and the appropriate study loaded.