O3-DPACS: a Java-based, IHE compliant open-source data and image manager and archiver

Within the Open Three Consortium (O3) an open source Image-Data Manager/Archiver, called O3- DPACS, has been studied, developed and experimented in the routine of European and US hospitals. The O3 Consortium is an international open-source project constituted in 2005 by Higher Education in Clinical Engineering (HECE) of the University of Trieste; it deals with the multi-centric integration of hospitals, RHIOs and citizen (care at home and on the move, and ambient assisted living). O3-DPACS is the evolution of the DPACS (Data & Picture Archiving and Communication System) project, started in 1995 at the University of Trieste, with the goal to develop an open, scalable, cheap and universal system with accompanying tools, to store, exchange and retrieve all health information of each citizen at hospital, metropolitan, regional, national and European levels, thus offering an integrated virtual health card of the European Citizens, in a citizen-centric vision.