@ AIIMS

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (www.aiims. ac.in) has an 850-node network with a Gigabit Ethernet Fiber channel backbone. A 2 Mbps link to VSNL provides Internet connectivity. 

Image-management software Hospitals and medical research institutions generate huge volumes of images: X-rays, CT and MRI scans, ultrasound scans, and so on. Managing these, particularly, storing, indexing and retrieving specific ones when required, is a major task and involves specialized software that runs across the hospital, or even groups of hospitals, making it easy to retrieve images where needed.

AIIMS develops its own software for research, as well as uses third-party software. One software developed at AIIMS was based on the Bremmermann optimization technique. This is meant to reduce the energy of molecules and help predict the kind of shape a molecule will adopt. It was developed using Fortran-77. An example of third-party software is Sybyl by Tripos, a molecular analysis and design software that runs on SGI workstations.

It has signed a deal with Siemens Information Systems for a 22 month project to implement a complete hospital-management system. Plans to offer telemedicine service are also on the way. Satellite links to various hospitals in Lucknow and Chandigarh have already been established. 

Inputs from Dr R S Tyagi, Dy Dir and Head Computer Facility and Dr G S Rao, Dept of Biophysics