European picture archiving and communication systems projects.

Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) are among the most promising information technologies in health care. They are, however, still in the development phase, and their implementation is taking longer than was predicted in the 1980s. Evaluation of these PACS implementations is also much more difficult than was expected. Local, very specific settings and lack of standard methodology make a comparison of tangible and intangible factors very cumbersome. This difficulty has resulted in very divergent opinions in the literature regarding the objectives, realizations, and achievements of PACS. Different approaches for image acquisition, processing, communication, and display have been supported in a wide variety of conferences and in a few key publications. Different approaches are particularly noticeable in Europe and are exemplified by a spectrum of single and multivendor PACS realizations. Some of the most significant of these developments are reviewed.