Implementation of a dynamic platform-independent DICOM-server

Hospital-wide image and patient data transfer within heterogeneous hard- and software infrastructures can be facilitated by using standardized communication protocols and data formats such as digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM). Each DICOM application entity (AE) usually provides a static and fixed set of services according to its functionality. However, certain security concepts, changing demands of medical users, or restricted hardware capabilities may be more easily addressed by applications that dynamically provide variable subsets of DICOM services. In a new approach, an object-oriented DICOM server framework was developed that served as a basis for assembling various DICOM applications. These applications may be set up dynamically to offer variable subsets of services at runtime, similar to "plug-ins". The framework was designed and implemented in Java in order to provide low-cost platform-independent solutions. As an example, a DICOM server was implemented and tested in a clinical application providing access to MR and CT images through a Java/DICOM viewer. Data retrieval was optimized by storing parts of the image acquisition and patient data into a relational database.