Some Important Facts that You Need to Know About Medical Image Sharing

What You Need to Know about Medical Image Sharing explained by PostDICOM

If you are someone who routinely deals with medical images, you are likely to be familiar with the term DICOM. DICOM, which is short for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine, is a standardized imaging format that was developed by the American College of Radiology in conjunction with the National Electrical Manufacturer’s Association. The DICOM format ensures that medical images conform to high quality standards, which allow for accurate diagnosis and interpretation. Radiology departments in all healthcare facilities have specialized software available that allows them to view, edit, and even reconstruct medical images when required.

Technological advancements have allowed physicians to obtain high standard DICOM images and maximize the amount of information they can extract from a medical image. The focus of research today has shifted to finding solutions that would speed up the workflow between acquiring an image and applying it to patient management. In this regard, one area that has seen great progress is medical image sharing.

What is medical image sharing and how is it different from sharing other files?

DICOM sharing or medical image sharing refers to the ability to pass on (or share) medical images that are in the DICOM format. Sharing can be done between different physicians and departments in the same healthcare facility. In addition to that, it is also possible to share medical images outside the facility with consultants or patients.


DICOM images cannot be shared as you would other files. Sharing a batch of snapshots in the JPEG format or Word documents is a fairly simple process. You can either send them as an email attachment or copy them to a pen drive or an external hard disk and hand that over to the desired recipient. Nowadays, there are several other apps through which you can compress and share files. Sharing documents and standard images is usually a straight forward process because most devices, such as laptops, desktops, mobile phones, and tablets, have built-in software to view and edit these files. DICOM images, however, cannot be viewed by standard image viewers. You need special software that can recognize and process these high quality images for you to view. Moreover, DICOM image files occupy a lot of space due to their high resolution and quality, which limits the methods for medical image sharing.

Why is the ability to remotely share DICOM images important?

Remote medical image sharing is essential for today’s healthcare processes. It is the basis of filmless radiography. DICOM image sharing is useful in the following contexts:


How to share DICOM images?

What You Need to Know about Medical Image Sharing explained by PostDICOM

DICOM medical images are usually stored in a PACS server (Picture Archiving and Communications System). This is a standalone database with a large volume of storage space. The PACS server is usually located inside the healthcare facility, in the same area where the images are being acquired. DICOM files that need to be shared must be copied from the PACS server to some form of portable data storage device. The conventional method has been


The problem with CD based sharing of DICOM files


Notebook PostDICOM Viewer

Cloud PACS and Online DICOM Viewer

Upload DICOM images and clinical documents to PostDICOM servers. Store, view, collaborate, and share your medical imaging files.

The solution: Cloud based medical image sharing

‘Cloud’ is the new buzzword on the tech scene today. Cloud computing allows users to harness the Internet’s resources for a variety of functions, ranging from storage to executing various programs, including medical image sharing apps. The functionality of cloud computing is available ‘on demand,’ so resources are not consumed unless when used. With regards to medical images, cloud computing offers the following solutions:



How does cloud computing benefit medical image sharing?

What You Need to Know about Medical Image Sharing explained by PostDICOM

Cloud computing has several advantages over the traditional method of DICOM image sharing:


PostDICOM’s Cloud PACS—Sharing medical images doesn’t get better than this!

PostDICOM offers two advanced cloud-based solutions that make medical image sharing simple and convenient.

PostDICOM’s online DICOM viewer is an HTML5, zero footprint, lossless viewer. The viewer has features that are comparable with leading desktop standalone viewers. It supports multimodality images, including CT, MRI, ultrasound, and PET scans. It allows fusion of images from two modalities. It has all the basic image-enhancing tools and even allows for advanced editing using 3D reconstruction, multiplanar reconstruction, and maximum and minimum intensity projections. PostDICOM’s online viewer supports not only DICOM files, but also clinical document formats, which include PDF, JPEG, and AVI files. Once you register with PostDICOM, you can try the viewer free of charge!

PostDICOM also offers a state-of-the-art cloud-based PACS solution, which can be expanded as needed up to 10 TB at nominal costs. PostDICOM’s Cloud PACS server allows you to store DICOM images, and create a disaster backup and recovery plan. It enables integration with other electronic records, like the Hospital Information System and Radiology Information System. PostDICOM’s Cloud PACS provides three levels of security to DICOM data: sessions and data transfer security, encryption, and password protection for each account. This ensures that patient privacy and confidentiality is maintained at all times.

Notebook PostDICOM Viewer

Cloud PACS and Online DICOM Viewer

Upload DICOM images and clinical documents to PostDICOM servers. Store, view, collaborate, and share your medical imaging files.