The biggest problem is that diagnostic systems are used for diagnosis. The subtleties of features that may help decide between diagnoses can be affected by the technique of collection of a chosen image and its display. The luminance and flicker rate of even the best screens disturb the free response of the visual system to the pure content of the radiological image. Interstitial pulmonary disease and the assessment of infiltrative tuberculosis are problematic. Any interaction with a work-station may disturb the Gestalt assessment of the radiograph.
Radiological images are large and place demands on networks and archival systems.
Present archival laser discs are effectively serial files, which slows their access speeds. Future solutions High quality networks are becoming commoner and cheaper all the time. Light emitting diodes, liquid crystal devices, and small mirror devices are improving in price and performance. There exists an ink that is dipolar and will change in response to an electric charge. This will at least produce an electronic medium that can compete with hte paper textbook.