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Teleradiology is a branch of telemedicine in which electronic transmission of radiological patient images, such as X-rays, computed tomography images, and magnetic resonance images, takes place. A basic teleradiology system consists of three major components: an image-sending station, a transmission network, and a receiving/image review station. In addition to its vast application in medical fields, teleradiology can also be useful for training new radiologists, assisting and training radiologists in developing countries, diagnosing injured soldiers on or near the battlefield, performing radiological procedures in space, etc.
Usually two servers or computers are connected via Internet. The computer at the receiving end will need high resolution monitors and preferably voice recognition software that has been tested and cleared for clinical purposes.
The images at the sending station are scanned and then sent via the network connection to the receiving computer.
The radiologist at the receiving station views the images and after proper interpretation dictates the report over the voice recognition software via a Dictaphone. The report thus generated is then sent back to scanning center over the internet. |