Bridging the communication gap between public and private radiology services

The delay in transfer of imaging studies when a patient moves between hospitals and between public and private systems has been a barrier to expedient and safe patient management. There is also suboptimal reporting when patients have serial imaging undertaken partly in the private sector and partly in the public sector, because of inability to access previous imaging for comparison. Availability of a DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) server enables sharing of health information, including imaging data, across various sites and jurisdictions. In Perth, Western Australia, we have successfully introduced electronic image transfer between five public teaching hospitals and three large private practices with different picture archiving and communication systems.