Digital echocardiographic communication using multivendor networked DICOM devices

Digital acquisition, storage, and review of echocardiographic data are feasible in a multivendor networked DICOM environment. The authors' echocardiographic laboratory currently stores 120 studies per day using the ProSolv Echo Management System. Storage and retrieval is realized on standard computer hardware without the necessity for proprietary hardware solutions. DICOM storage has become more efficient as vendor solutions improve. Transmission rates over a 10/100 BT switched network are approximately 0.40 MB/s allowing a complete echo study (~40 MB) to be transferred to the server in approximately 1.5 minutes, however the ability to send data during a study has also been realized by one vendor.