You’ve probably heard your fair share about vendor neutral archiving, or VNA, as it has become more popularly known. You’ve also probably thought to yourself that the perks to this type of DICOM storage could benefit your doctors and your patients. Here are a few quick facts to get you up to speed on DICOM storage and the VNA technology that is allowing more healthcare facilities to share patient data, including medical imaging.
1. DICOM Storage Ties Everything Together
Do you currently have a PACS that you’re pushing to its limit – expecting it to do things it wasn’t designed to do? You probably also have a hospital information system that is separate from what your radiology department is using. What if you could have one place to store all that information? That’s what DICOM storage using VNA is all about.
2. How Does Vendor Neutral Archiving Help?
A true VNA will allow healthcare facilities to connect with one another regardless of the hardware and software they’re using. The goal is to create a space where massive amounts of medical images can be stored and retrieved easily so healthcare professionals can see exactly what’s going on with the patient and make a diagnosis – quickly and accurately. With patients seeking treatment from more than one specialist for their healthcare needs today, access to medical records has never been more important, and that’ exactly what a DICOM storage system using VNA is built to do.
3. What Happens When PACS Don’t Communicate? DICOM to the Rescue
It’s not unusual for different departments to have PACS that don’t speak the same language. This creates something of a bottleneck in the electronic health records planning that most healthcare facilities have initiated. These facilities are looking for solutions that allow them to not only store images that can be shared across departments, but images that come out looking as good as they did going in. Not every vendor has figured out how to maintain the integrity of medical images, which means you’ve got your work cut out for you as you search for a vendor with VNA solutions.
4. Storage, Organization and Complete Access Are Keys to Success
Your DICOM storage solution should give you the ability to store your data and pull it up using keywords that will offer you consistent views to files you need. Healthcare providers demand prompt access to their patients’ entire medical history. Centralized clinical data is the key to offering them this “luxury,” and DICOM storage is the best avenue to take.
OffSite Image Management, Inc., has built a robust DICOM storage solution that harnesses the power of Honeycomb, a solution that only a handful of HIE providers are using. Using this non-proprietary approach ensures that clients of OffSite are securely sharing their radiological information, regardless of the platform, with the professionals who need to see it. If your PACS is having issues, our solution will meet every challenge. Contact our professional team today and learn why it will help you.