When a healthcare facility implements a new picture archiving communication system (PACS), the honeymoon phase might last a couple of years before image routing problems begin to occur. In facilities where the PACS is really old, there is a good chance that there are more problems on a typical day than just image routing issues. The question is how does a facility overcome the shortcomings of their PACS?
A few years ago, the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ, began to experience workflow issues with image routing. Technologists and radiologists were not able to efficiently share/deliver patient images, so the IT staff brought in new technologies to alleviate the problems.
Perhaps your issues are similar to the ones Mayo faced? At Mayo, their PACS had a centralized database but a short-term storage server on the hospital campus. The IT staff had it configured so images were sent through one of eight DICOM acquisition servers. While the facility had 10 modalities interfacing each of the DICOM acquisition servers, only four could send images at the same time. Without load balancing, there was a lot of waiting for images to get from point A to point B.
What do you do when one of your in-house servers goes down? If you’re like Mayo, you have to reboot them and hope they come back online quickly without corrupted data. This downtime is also a hassle for your medical professionals and does nothing to advance the services you provide your patients.
One days when your PACS is working smoothly, does it typically take eight to 10 minutes for the images to get to their destination? That’s what Mayo experienced before bringing in new technology to help manage the workflow more efficiently. The truth is, your medical data, including medical imaging, is better off being stored offsite by professional datacenters than it is on your antiquated servers. Furthermore, you need vendor neutral archiving services to ensure that your data doesn’t get hung out to dry due to communication issues between disparate systems.
There is an excellent chance that the PACS solution you chose years ago does not support your needs today. You need a responsive data storage and disaster recovery partner that specializes in the advanced technology that will keep your data available to you 24/7. These vendors focus on helping you and your business share data more freely, whether it’s across your campus or across state lines.
When your images are stored offsite, you have less chance of losing your important data due to disaster. Furthermore, the servers used at top-notch datacenters are among the best available and have a very low fail rate.
OffSite Image Management, Inc., has developed a solution that allows you total mobility in viewing medical imaging. Our solution requires zero client administration and no updating on your part – we do everything automatically. If your PACS seems to be slowly trudging up an incline day after day, take some time to watch this video about our PACS services and contact us today.