Accessible web-based collaborative tools and wireless personal PACS: Feasibility of group work for radiologists

The purpose of this paper is to create an original wiki web-based DICOM image viewer linked with DICOM server and evaluate the clinical feasibility of this system. Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit web page content using a simple markup language with any web browser. Hardware of mobile DICOM server (MDS) with all-in-one server functions including wiki web, SQL database, and server message block (SMB) is commercial based pocket-size network attached storage with a 60 GB hard disk and x86 compatible CPU. All software we installed is open-source. Radiologists can easily author their own wiki web page and edit their DICOM images and thumbnail images with suitable layout using wireless PDAs or laptop personal computers (PCs). The length of source scripts of a wiki web page is shorter than a conventional HTML source and a wiki editable source document is easy to understand for radiologists who have no knowledge of HTML language. We conclude this system is a useful web collaboration tool and advantageous personal DICOM image database for education, discussion, and research of radiologists.