SocialRAD: An Infrastructure for a Secure, Cooperative, Asynchronous Teleradiology System

The popularity of teleradiology services has enabled a major advance in the provision of health services to areas with difficult geographical access. However, this potential has also brought with it a number of challenges: the large volume of data, characteristic of imaging tests, and security requirements designed to ensure confidentiality and integrity. Moreover, there is also a number of ethical questions involving the dominant model on the market, whereby this service is outsourced to private companies, and is not directly undertaken by professional radiologists. Therefore, the present paper proposes a cooperative model of teleradiology, where health professionals interact directly with the hospitals providing patient care. This has involved the integration of a wide range of technologies, such as the interconnection models Peer-to-Peer, Cloud Computing, Dynamic DNS, RESTful Web Services, as well as security and interoperability standards, with the aim of promoting a secure, collaborative asynchronous environment. The developed model is currently being used on an experimental basis, providing teleradiology support to cities in the north-eastern hinterland of Brazil, and is fulfilling all expectations.