The ability to horizontally tile current and prior exams side-by-side is non-negotiable. Advanced viewers will automatically register (align) the prior study with the current one to highlight changes such as tumor growth or interval healing.

Surgeons, oncologists, and radiologists gather in a conference room. They launch the web-based RIS viewer on a large smartboard. They scroll through a PET/CT fusion, draw on the images, and save the annotations to the patient chart—all without proprietary dongles or cables.

A basic viewer shows an image. A clinical RIS viewer measures it. Look for automatic aneurysm measurements, cardiac ejection fraction calculations, and tumor volume tracking across historical studies.

Teleradiology—the remote interpretation of medical images—has exploded in the last decade. Here, the RIS viewer becomes even more critical.

Remote radiologists cannot walk down the hall to ask a technologist a question. They rely entirely on the data presented in the RIS viewer. Modern teleradiology RIS viewers include: