Hello everyone, I have tried to write this a couple of times already, a power outage killed the first attempt, the second attempt was aborted by an ID 10 T user error =o]. so im going to try again, i feel i owe it to the Clear Canvas guys to let everyone know what a great job they have done with Clear Canvas...
Several months ago i was on the hunt to find a long term PACS storage solution for CT Studies, i look at the major players packages ranging anywhere from 50k to 15k, and most of the less expensive and the GNU (freeware) packages and installed most of them to test and see how they worked after several months of late nights and several OS installs i came across Clear Canvas and was completely surprised and never looked back at any of the others.... FYI: the CEO was considering the use of an offsite DICOM archive service that would have cost 8k to 12k per year at a per study cost.
After trying out Clear Canvas before making my final decision on a product i was going to have to deal with for the next ten years, i wanted to have some assurance my pick was going to work for me and the company i work for, i asked the Clear Canvas guys about support and how serious they were about the future of Clear Canvas, i felt they gave satisfactory response to my questions, so the next step was to show Clear Canvas to the CEO of the company and get his response and the go ahead to purchase the hardware of my specifications.
He asked me how i felt about the product my response was ive tried at least 8 different products and i feel this is the best designed PACS / DICOM storage software ive tried you cant beat the cost and i cant wait to install the RIS in a few months.
Here's the configuration:
Siemens Somatom Emotion 16 CT Scanner ( 1 Gigabit Network ) 5-10 sec transfer of studies to CC. : ) Onsite Rack Mounted: 4TB RAID 6 OS: Server 2003 1Gigabit Network ( Main PACS Archive) Offsite Backup Tower @ Radiologists: 4TB Raid5 OS: Server 2003 ( Offsite Backup ) Hardware VPN: Studies Auto Routed to Backup Server where studies are read using CC workstation.
I needed remote viewing of images, we have several offices, so i have to give some recognition to a simple Web based PACS that's free as well MFP ( My Free PACS ) on the main server using SSL and passwords, I move the studies as needed and delete when they are a week old, MFP also uses SQL Express 2005.
its been a few months since the Scanner was installed and functioning so far so good I have NOT had a single problem with Clear Canvas PACS, Great Job GUYS!!!
If you need a PACS solution and you try it im sure you'll feel the same, I wanted to also Mention just in case this sound to much like a sales pitch, i have no affiliation with Clear Canvas, plus don't forget its free!!!
I highly recommend Clear Canvas to anyone needing a DICOM / PACS solution.
P.S. BTW: I recently ( today ) installed Clear Canvas for another Imaging Center where a friend of mine works he needed help with the configuration and setup they are going to be using it as a backup archive server.
robert