i3ARCHIVE adopts 3G standards into NDMA

July 13, 2004

i3ARCHIVE, a provider of systems for managing digital mammography information, will become the first company to adopt the new 3G standards for Grid Computing in a medical offering. i3ARCHIVE will integrate the standards into its National Digital Mammography Archive (NDMA), the largest archive of digital mammography images and patient data, setting the stage for its growth nationwide.

The project, which will be completed in 2005, is being funded through a grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.

i3ARCHIVE Chief Technical Officer Bob Hollebeek says, "We are deeply grateful for this opportunity. Adopting these standards enhances the NDMA, making it possible to connect it to other medical content. Systems of this type will be the basis for secure digital patient record systems, making medical digital information available with the same convenience as the Web."

The standards, which include Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) and Open Grid Services Infrastructure (OGSI) make it possible for the NDMA to seamlessly integrate with information from other medical databases. This integration will make the data more accessible to a broader range of patients through their healthcare institutions and provide benefits including better diagnosis and care, record portability and better image quality.

The Grid has been hailed as the next-generation Internet, using groups of computers to provide seamless, secure access to IT resources. Experts like Charlie Catlett, chairman of the Global Grid Forum, believes that the time has come for 3G, which enables systems to work together more easily and with less customization than is currently possible.

In an article titled "Third Generation Grids" Catlett writes, "By introducing standard technical specifications, 3G Grid technology will have the potential to allow both competition and interoperability not only among applications and toolkits, but among implementations of key services."

By making this transition to 3G, i3ARCHIVE is also helping to pioneer hospital to hospital (h2h) computing, within grid standards. A compliant NDMA helps accelerate this process by providing healthcare institutions with easy access to mammography images and patient information on behalf of patients. Hollebeek says, "As the use of the 3G standard grows, the i3ARCHIVE-generated solution will have more general applicability than just mammography, and a 3G NDMA may serve as a model for future products in the healthcare arena."