Few in the medical community would argue that radiology and biomedical imaging is one of the most important factors in determining why patients are sick and how they can be properly treated. Most of those images must be correctly routed to the medical facilities where medical professionals can view them, so properly routing images is of the utmost importance.
Business continuity is paramount to medical practitioners, not just because of the fiscal challenges that they face, but also because business continuity follow-through means that routing images to the professionals that rely on them to provide the best patient care possible.
For instance, many healthcare professionals are establishing a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) where routing images to the various departments, on and offsite, is made with ease. PACS also allows radiology images to be stored securely and with disaster recovery steps implemented so that the data is always secure and available to be viewed when needed at a moment’s notice.
PACS through third parties can offer the following benefits:
- Excellent routing options to people who need to be mobile and want to use the same tools that they use on their desktops.
- Third parties can take care of all the administrative work, leaving little to no IT work to the client.
- Users don’t have to hassle with upgrades or licensing issues and will receive them automatically.
Most medical professionals today are expecting greater functionality in routing options, including auto routing in many cases. Many believe that the future of PACS will include auto-routing of radiological images to specialists who expect them in a normal workflow. The belief is that productivity could increase by as much as 50 percent under this type of model with faster and accurate diagnoses and better consumer access to images.
Today’s enhanced network speeds, especially in areas fortunate enough to be tied into the Google fiber network, are teaming up with more powerful architectures to deliver more powerful imaging routing possibilities. Some steps in the PACS arena can be quite complex and time-consuming, which can be greatly helped with better infrastructure and proper routing techniques.
Healthcare professionals today expect the smooth flow of radiological images to the exact location where they are needed. They also need these images to be displayed in a clear and distinct manner that allows them to properly diagnose and recommend treatment. Setting up a proper study management workflow puts PACS in good hands with the most intelligent functionality of routing and image acquisition, as well as storage.
OffSite Image Management, Inc., specializes in rural and critical care hospitals where routing images is just as important as anywhere else, maybe more important as rural areas are often underserved and increased assistance to share data from the small rural providers to the specialists located in urban areas. Offsite provides vendor neutral archiving, data storage and business continuity solutions, PACS, health information exchange and virtual CD through cloud management.