Medical Image Storage in the Cloud

A Senior Capstone Project

Chia-Chi TengInformation Technology

Brigham Young UniversityProvo, UT, USA

Courtesy of Frost & Sullivan (frost.com)

Trend in Medical Imaging

Courtesy of Frost & Sullivan (frost.com)

Trend in Medical Imaging

Picture Archiving & Communications Systems (PACS)

Web BrowserDiagnostic WorkstationClinical Workstation

Printer

PACS ServerDICOM & Web

ArchiveRadiology Workstation

Image Acquisition

Practical Considerations

• Cost• Backup, Disaster Recovery• Connectivity, Availability• Scalability

Picture Archiving & Communications Systems (PACS) with Cloud

Web BrowserDiagnostic WorkstationClinical Workstation

Printer

PACS ServerDICOM & Web

ArchiveDICOM & Web

Radiology WorkstationImage Acquisition

Web Browser

Off-Site Diagnostic Workstation

More Practical Considerations

• Cost• Backup, Disaster Recovery• Connectivity, Availability• Scalability• Security• Liability• Regulation

IBM (www.ibm.com)

WTN NEWS (wistechnology.com)

InformationWeek (www.informationweek.com)

Digital Imaging & Communication in Medicine (DICOM)

System Overviewworker role

*

* DICOM# open source project

worker role web role

How to Scale?

• Asynchronous programming model• Stateless data flow• Message queue management

Why Windows Azure

• C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Silverlight …• IDE: Visual Studio• API: Blob, Queue, .NET (e.g. TCP Endpoint)• Tools, e.g. AzureStorageExplorer• Local cloud simulation environment, fabric &

storage – great for debugging• Deployment/management interface

Wish List & Gotcha’s

• Packing 3rd party DLL• 64 vs 32 bit• Cloud debugging• Queue management

Development Cycle

• Create/manage services in Azure• Dev environment, Azure SDK• Develop/run/debug project on local fabric• Deploy project to the cloud

Demo

Potential Applications

• Health care provider• 3rd world countries• Research collaboration, data hub, e.g. NIH

FaceBase project• Diagnosis/treatment planning clearing house• Microsoft HealthVault

Conclusion

• Cloud computing in curriculum• Great learning platform with awesome tools

• Questions?