SimpleDICOM suite: personal productivity tools for managing DICOM objects

Abstract

Commercial picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) are adept at supporting mainstream radiology work flow, but radiologists frequently encounter situations requiring additional functionality. For example, the incorporation of foreign or nonradiologic images and the deidentification of examinations for research purposes are useful tasks that do not fall within the purview of most commercial PACS. A suite of free, downloadable, vendor-independent software programs designed as PACS add-ons, the SimpleDICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) Suite, has been developed to aid radiologists in performing these tasks. Clinically relevant software design and informed administrative decisions during deployment allow optimal function of this software suite, which is available for download from the Internet.