Teleradiology according to the Roentgenverordnung - exemplary application of the open source software SecTelMed

Purpose: Establishing a teleradiology connection according to the Roentgenverordnung (RoeV) between a peripheral hospital and a university clinic will contribute to improve the radiological emergency treatment on weekends, holidays and at night. It will also better the medical care for patients and help to lower the costs. Materials and Methods: By using the open source software SecTelMed, the radiological picture is transferred via an internet-linked SSH communication server. The integration of the teleradiological data transfer into the actual workflow is attained by using the already existing PACS infrastructure. While its installation is still under construction, it is actually employed for transfering a patient's preliminary investigations and obtaining second opinions. Results: The project proves a reliable and affordable teleradiology according with RoeV by using open source software. The applied infrastructure ensures an unproblematical teleradiological treatment as well as a safe picture transfer for medical consulting (second opinion) even for large CT examinations of 1,000 pictures and more. Conclusion: the implementation of the technical requirements on teleradiology according with the Roentgenverordnung can be reliably attained by applying the open source software SecTelMed. (orig.)