<title>Automatic monitoring system for PACS management and operation</title>

Abstract

In order to achieve the high and continuous availability in PACS operation, the PACS component status would be monitored seriously and quick responds would apply to the component if any failure happened to any PACS key component either in hardware or software level. In order to protect the data loss and also for security issue, the PACS data flow, e.g., from acquisition to final display, would be tracked carefully. All these measures will increase the total cost of ownership (TCO). We built an automatic monitoring system (AMS) on top of the PACS to assist the PACS management and to make the PACS component status and internal data flow more transparent to the administrators. The PACS AMS consists of two parts: monitoring agents running in each PACS component computer and a Monitor Server running in a remote computer. Monitoring agents are connected to all PACS processes running in each PACS component. The Monitor Server monitors each agent that allows the server to track the status of individual PACS process. The PACS managers can now monitor and control the entire PACS operation in real time, and also track patient and image data flow automatically.