All healthcare facilities are working to meet the guidelines for stage 2 of Meaningful Use, the program set up to make sure providers are in
compliance with certified electronic health (EHR) record technology. Some are having a more difficult time than others.
The rural providers, including critical access hospitals, are struggling to find the finances to pay for these changes. Embarking on replacing a legacy EHR system with a 2014 certified system is not in the budget for most of these rural facilities, but some improvements have to be made, not only to be in compliance with Meaningful Use, but to also improve on the daily workflow, and archiving and sharing medical images.
Michael Archuleta, director of IT and PACS administrator at a small hospital in Colorado embarked on a Meaningful Use project earlier this year. His team upgraded servers as well as communications systems within the hospital. They found great benefit in new technologies that help to improve patient care. One of the go-to technologies today includes Cloud PACS, where affordability and quality unite.
Cloud PACS allow facilities to utilize servers and databases located offsite, which means providers don’t have to buy expensive hardware, provide the routine maintenance, or staff the facility with IT professionals. This is of great importance to rural providers that neither have the staff nor the money to go through an extensive PACS implementation, on site.
Even in the cloud, PACS can handle many types of images, including US, MR, CT, MG, DR, ES, CR, PET and more. As new formats are devised, the cloud PACS with its vendor neutral archiving architecture, will be able to handle whatever is thrown at it.
All providers, including those in the rural areas, require a highly scalable PACS. These systems have qualified redundancies, which help to protect the integrity and availability of the images and data. One of the reasons more providers are going with cloud PACS is due to the availability, which is much higher than what is found in on-site PACS where you’re at the mercy of the weakest link in the hardware, software or tech watching over the system.
One of the best things about getting on board with a PACS like this is that you’ll have more mobility, so will your patients. Better yet, the best PACS can integrate with any medical information system.
The best PACS will feature RIS, PACS, Mammo PACS, 3D and other applications that operate with a single database. It will also be hardware independent, which means you won’t be penalized because you’re operating on rare hardware. The best PACS are also scalable and give you archiving options.
OffSite Image Management has built a cloud PACS solution that includes all of the above, and more. We offer real-time multi-level backup, accurate and fast data migration for replacement systems, user-configurable display protocols and Justin-in-time (JIT) image loading. For information about all of our solutions, contact us today.