There are five equally important parts of the typical radiology process. It starts at patient registration. Here, the patient demographics are entered and any previous exams or other historical information is retrieved. The third part is taking the picture of the patient. This is what used to be called an x-ray but is now a digitally acquired image represented by zeros and ones in the computer world.
Pixels contain different gray values and together create an image.
The pixels then pass through many components in the equipment to adjust balance, color and other corrections. This information is then transferred to the Image Storage Unit within seconds. The fourth part is the Image Processing Workstation. This is where the Radiologist can manipulate and review the image, compare it to previous images and report the findings. Lastly, the network infrastructure is not only important at the start but also during and at the end of the complex system.