Another eBay PACS

A while back, I found an ad for a Dynamic Imaging PACS on eBay.  I don't know if it ever sold, but the opening bid was $45,000. 

On a lark, I tried searching for PACS on eBay again today, and indeed there is another system available.  Actually, the seller has two separate but identical listings for the same package. 

Here's the deal:

Brand New PACS system for an affordable price. buy it complete for $8,999. purchase includes hardware, software & licensing. one year complete parts & labor warranty. Order today and have it up and running in 48 hours. Contact Rudy at (see the listing) to get this great deal. STOP buying jackets, STOP buying films, STOP printing & faxing reports. GO DIGITAL Today!. this system will pay for itself in 1 month. be ahead of your competition and offer your physicians instant access to their referred patient images & reports. your success story starts from here. Contact Rudy at (see the listing) TODAY!. Do not pay thousands of dollars more for another system with less features. this is the one and only PACS you need for the life if your imaging center. Future Proof. Feature Rich, Affordable.

Here are the specs:

Included With Your PACS System:

• UNLIMITED Patients
• UNLIMITED Studies
• UNLIMITED Users
• UNLIMITED Referring Physician
• HIPPA Compliance
• Modality Work List
• Auto Route
• CD/DVD Burning
• Digital Laser Label (uses laser to print your clinic's logo & Patient's information on CD's/DVD's)
• iPhone Compatible. (access your PACS server, view images, read reports from your iPhone. Anytime, Anywhere.)
• Windows, MAC, Linux Compatible.
• Referring Physician Portal for your physicians to log-in and view the images for their patients, download reports or print images if they want to.
• Full imaging center Reporting System. Based on modalities, referring physicians, date, Application Entity (AE), patient ID or any combination.
• Web Based Radiologist access. your radiologist can read from any computer at any location at anytime.
• Built-in VPN server. secure connection for outside access. e-Film, digital jacket or any other dicom viewer software.
• Optional HL7 Interface

Server Configuration:

• AMD ATHLON 64 X2 5200+ C2 2.70GHZ
• 2GB DDR2 800 PC6400 HYPERX MEMORY
• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
• Your Choice of 2TB Hard Drive (RAID0) or 1TB Hard Drive (RAID1). Need more storage? No Problem we can upgrade your storage to meet your needs.
• Optional UPS
• Virus, Spyware, Malware, Firewall Protection
• One Year PARTS & LABOR warranty   

Optional Modules & Services:

• Dragon Naturally Speaking Voice Recognition Software
• Transcription System. Available in both digital (digital recorders) or analog (dial-in)
• Remote Server Backup

What a deal!  I'm particularly intrigued by the UNLIMITED stuff.  I have to pay license fees and buy more storage on my SAN to add patients.  Has Rudy found a way to store an UNLIMITED amount of data on the server?  When you say UNLIMITED, it should mean UNLIMITED, yes?  Well, Rudy?  What say you?

I'm also taken with the thought of a platform-independent PACS.  Rudy was kind enough to include a screen-shot of his GUI, something many vendors never get around to doing, by the way. 

This is a rather busy interface, with cute and occasionally informative icons.  No doubt there are tool-tabs in actual use.  I would assume this was designed by an engineer working with a graphics designer, with no radiologist in the immediate neighborhood.

You'll notice the title-bar refers to this viewer as "RemotEye".  A quick googling reveals the source:  NeoLogica, from Italy.  NeoLogica also provides PACS Connector to connect RemotEye to any DICOM server: 

Thanks to the PACSConnector software option, RemotEye can now be deployed as a "ready-to-use" solution, without requiring development of custom integrations for a specific DICOM server or archive.

Searching for patients and studies, sending DICOM files to server, reporting, downloading and displaying images from server and all operations typically supported by RemotEye are now available through the special module developed by NeoLogica: PACSConnector.

PACSConnector works as a bridge between the DICOM server (PACS) and the RemotEye client, implementing the DICOM protocol on one side, and the RemotEye-specific HTTP/XML protocol on the other side.

RemotEye now also supports a new integration mechanism, based on the HTTP and XML standards. This mechanism is particularly suitable when RemotEye shall be configured as the viewing front-end for a DICOM back-end system or archive. In this mode, RemotEye sends queries to the back-end through the HTTP protocol, based on the search parameters entered by the user in the search window. After performing a query on the DICOM storage archive, the server will send XML-formatted answers to RemotEye, containing the matching patients, studies, series and images. RemotEye will now be able to retrieve and display the relevant studies and series, as requested by the user, even using compression techniques. In order to better support this new integration mode, RemotEye is now also able to execute as a Java Web Start application, in addition to as a Java Applet.

The Java origins explain the cross-platform abilities.  Rudy doesn't tell us which DICOM server is in use, but I would assume it is NeoLogica's LogiPACS. 

Is this worth $9K?  Well... I'm not sure how much the software costs, but the hardware isn't much more than $1,000 or so.  If you're capable and adventurous, you can use open-source PACS software, such as Conquest and/or ClearCanvas (about which I know virtually nothing) for free.  There's also the free OsiriX client, which can be used with the free dcm4che server.  I'm not sure what the FDA implications might be, however.  You could also use the free PacsOne (their capitalization, not mine) system.  I downloaded it and they proceeded to cold-call me while I was in Costa Rica, costing several dollars and souring me on their product.  Other low-cost solutions (at least initially) include using remote servers as we see with Co-Activ. 

I guess PACS is now a mainstream product, with its regular appearance in eBay.  I'll be really impressed when we can buy a system at Wal-Mart, along with the EMR they already sell.