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Proactive with PACS

May 27, 2015
Techniques for sharing PACS data to enhance radiology reporting—with minimal expense

By Cristine Kao

Hospital mergers and acquisitions are happening at a rapid pace, as health care providers seek to consolidate resources, reduce costs and enhance services. Legacy technology, like a PACS within a radiology department, can be challenging if it’s not part of the overall IT strategy.

In order to effectively share clinical data stored in multiple PACS systems across all sites, the traditional approach would be to implement a single PACS platform at all locations. This is likely to involve significant costs as well as workflow disruption to end-users. Fortunately, there are alternative ways to achieve an efficient workflow that do not require an immediate investment in new equipment or data migration.

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Consider a phased approach
A phased approach is financially attractive and allows health care providers to address user needs without requiring a significant investment. Initially, each PACS can be maintained separately. Radiologists can continue their current methods for reading exams and reporting results. Embedding a universal enterprise viewer that is FDA approved for diagnostic reading can equip referring physicians to confidently access radiology reports and key images, regardless of where the data is stored. A zero-footprint viewer can be easily deployed on mobile devices to offer optimal ease of use for physicians who want to access reports and images during hospital rounds, office consultations or from their homes. Convenient mobile access to image data and reports enables physicians to be very responsive in developing a diagnosis and discussing treatment options with patients. And clinicians can display images on mobile devices during consultations to help each patient understand their disease or condition.

Software can federate multiple patient databases
Dealing with two or more PACS requires a way to efficiently and cost effectively share patient data. This can be achieved by implementing a new software layer that allows providers to federate multiple databases and associate data with the correct patient IDs. By federating databases, a radiologist can read from a single patient worklist regardless of the original site of acquisition and achieve seamless access to relevant prior exams and patient information.

Another option is PACS takeover technology that equips the primary PACS to move data from a subordinate PACS as needed — for example, moving prior exams when a current imaging study for a patient is added to the worklist. This eliminates the need for a comprehensive and expensive data migration upfront. Over time, patient data is migrated and the subordinate PACS can be removed.

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