The Korean Ophthalmological Society migrated its legacy Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) server to Amazon AppStream 2.0 to stream ophthalmologic imaging studies, such as retinal photographs, optical coherence tomography images, visual field tests, and optical biometry, to 80 university eye doctors nationwide.

Recent advances in eye imaging help ophthalmologists assess eye diseases, especially vision-threatening diseases like age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular edema, retinal vascular diseases, and glaucoma. Previously, doctors were only able to view medical images using the PACS system while they were physically in the hospital treating patients with eye diseases. This was inefficient and caused delays especially for research and clinical trials that include numerous institutions and hospitals. This challenge drove researchers to seek a centralized system to collect medical images from multiple sites. Now, by using AppStream 2.0, university doctors and researchers have the ability to analyze digital images anytime and anywhere on their own devices, which helps advance research and saves time and space for researchers.

Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed, secure application streaming service that allows users to stream desktop applications from AWS to any device running a web browser, without rewriting them. AppStream 2.0 provides users instant-on access to the applications they need, with a responsive, fluid user experience on the device of their choice.

The high-resolution, functionality, and performance of PACS is important to the doctors who frequently access medical imaging as they treat patients and conduct research. Through AppStream 2.0, applications run on AWS compute resources, and data is never stored on users’ devices, which means they always get a high-performance, secure experience.

 “AppStream 2.0 has provided researchers with three great benefits in conducting nationwide eye research. First of all, it eliminates space and time constraints. Secondly, it makes it easy to use traditional desktop-based solutions in the cloud without any development. Last but not least, it provides an easy user experience,” said Professor Sang Jun Park.

Professor Sang Jun Park, an ophthalmologist who specializes in retinal, vitreal, and uveal diseases at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, is managing the project as an assistant administrator of the Epidemiologic Survey Committee of the Korean Ophthalmological Society (KOS).