'PACS is a lot more than a radiology application that displays images. Now, the emphasis has shifted to creating a virtual community, where PACS is becoming part of a complete IT solution that provides a full range of image and medical record access, storage, communication, teleradiology, business continuity, and high availability across all medical specialties. The drive for greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness first prompted the integration of RIS with PACS. Rob Falk, founder and medical director of 3DR Laboratories. 'Some hospitals have no budget for medical imaging equipment in 2008-2009,' said Dr. The goal is to provide access to images and electronic patient medical records anytime, anywhere, on a shoestring budget. ENTERPRISE IMAGINGĪt the same time, hospitals, which are being driven by bottom line benefits, are moving toward enterprise imaging.

'Efficiency assurance and reporting are important in this model because imaging facilities are now able to change radiology groups quickly,' said Ronny Bachrach, marketing manager at Viztek. PACS must also have data mining features to support ancillary tasks like billing and practice management.

PACS must now be capable of handling multiple institutions, with strong load balancing and report management capabilities. 'This is more efficient than having radiologists log onto legacy systems all over town to perform reads,' Koeppel said. Results are then returned via HL7 and DICOM interfaces. Consequently, interest is growing among radiology groups for purchasing their own PACS and having hospitals send images to the group PACS to be read. 'Radiologists are logging on to as many as five or six different PACS in a single workday,' said Seth Koeppel, senior sales vice president at eRAD. Typical large reading groups in most cities must now interact with many different PACS. Offsite reading and reliance on day and nighthawk teleradiology services are growing, and demands have surfaced for PACS solutions to support new business models. The increase in imaging procedures measured against the decrease in the number of radiologists, however, has created a coverage crisis. Over the past decade, hospitals have been the primary PACS consumers.

Mckesson pacs viewer