[Full computerization of a radiology service. A 5 years' experience at a centralized system]

Even though the problem of collecting and processing information is of paramount importance in any radiology department, the choice of the best information system--as for organization and effectiveness--largely depends on specific and different local situations and is therefore still largely debated. In the ULSS 18 in Veneto (Dolo, Venezia), all patients are referred to the only existing hospital radiology. Therefore, a central computer system has been be realized and used also by the radiology department, for completely computed procedures, since January 1, 1988. We describe the computer configuration of both the ULSS and the radiology department and report on our 5-year experience with full computerization within a central information system. As for department organization, any information system--with appropriate hardware and software--can be equivalent to others, since it largely contributes to both management (programming, booking, filing, accounting) and reporting (automatic reporting with memorized texts and/or voice recognition; reprinting; immediate correction at the video-terminal). Thanks to more rational exploitation of human and technological resources, any information system makes a radiology department more functional and efficient. However, some peculiarities of the central computer system must be stressed, as they allow: 1) to use pre-existing and updated patients files (unequivocal identification in the whole ULSS); 2) to gain access to the databanks of different specialties and to patients' clinical histories (complete data collected from many sources); 3) to intervene in booking and ticket collection centers with none of the relative loads; 4) to have no limits of memory, storage or speed for complex programs (automatic reporting also with the recognition of the dictating voice, accounting and statistical analyses, ecc.); 5) to profit by continually updated and fitted hardware and software, with the relative expenses and benefits shared by the whole ULSS. Within the possibilities given by a double role-ruled password, all different menus and programs are accessible from any video-terminal, even while other programs are running, thus allowing cost-effective hardware to be available in the radiology department.