What is a Zero Footprint Medical Image Viewer?
What is a Zero Footprint Medical Image Viewer?
By Catherine Slotnick · June 26, 2014
If you've recently attended any of the big radiology or imaging conferences, like SIIM or RSNA, you may have noticed a phrase strewn across vendor displays and collateral used to describe medical image viewers. Based on the title of this blog, you can probably guess the phrase I'm talking about: zero-footprint. This term has sparked many questions, namely, what does it mean and why should I care? In this post, we'll cover the benefits of browser-based, zero-footprint technology. If you're looking for a complete overview of the topic, download a copy of our new whitepaper which reveals what you need to know when evaluating medical image viewers.
The Value of Zero
The main advantage of a zero footprint viewer is the flexibility for launching studies directly in the browser, regardless of the type of browser, operating system, or device.
Zero plugins
Have you ever had to install a new application onto your computer in order to open a document? Perhaps at one point in time, you needed to download the latest version of Adobe in order to view a PDF. What if you had to go through that same process to view every study? You wouldn't. That's why a zero footprint design is so important. It immediately launches images without requiring any installations or plugins.
Zero latency
If you're like most people, you're not interested in delayed gratification – which is why zero footprint viewers load images on-demand. Viewing latency is kept to a minimum by streaming technology. You can think of the streaming of medical images in the way you stream videos. Rather than waiting an hour for an entire video to download, you can usually begin playing as soon as the loading process begins.
Zero maintenance
For large enterprises, keeping traditional medical image viewers in tip-top shape can be a full-time job. Updating installations and maintaining client-side software is time-consuming. Zero-footprint viewers are centrally controlled, making it simple to roll out new features to all users simultaneously.
