New trends in the virtualization of hospitals--tools for global e-Health
Graschew, G.; Roelofs, T.A.; Rakowsky, S.; Schlag, P.M.; Heinzlreiter, P.; Kranzlmüller, D.; Volkert, J.
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics 121: 168-175
2006
ISSN/ISBN: 0926-9630 PMID: 17095814 Document Number: 599321
The development of virtual hospitals and digital medicine helps to bridge the digital divide between different regions of the world and enables equal access to high-level medical care. Pre-operative planning, intra-operative navigation and minimally-invasive surgery require a digital and virtual environment supporting the perception of the physician. As data and computing resources in a virtual hospital are distributed over many sites the concept of the Grid should be integrated with other communication networks and platforms. A promising approach is the implementation of service-oriented architectures for an invisible grid, hiding complexity for both application developers and end-users. Examples of promising medical applications of Grid technology are the real-time 3D-visualization and manipulation of patient data for individualized treatment planning and the creation of distributed intelligent databases of medical images.