Choose a PACS That is Right for You Now and in the Future
Stepping into a new PACS comes with many considerations. With a variety of vendors from which to
choose, knowing exactly what will fit your needs might be a bigger challenge than you planned for. Knowing what questions to ask going in will help make the process easier.
There is a reason you’re upgrading to a new PACS, so list those reasons out. However, you also need to jot down what your current PACS does that you like. If there are features you simply can’t live without, any vendor you talk to that can’t offer these features will need to be ruled out.
Cost is a big consideration with everyone, which is why you don’t want to commit to high annual support fees or extra charges for software upgrades. However, if you run into a vendor who has exceedingly low support fees, make sure they’re not operating on a skeleton staff that will be unable to give you the support you need at a moment’s notice. The vendors with reasonable fees and a robust help desk should be placed higher on your list of contenders.
There has been a lot of talk about PACS that are vendor neutral, and for good reason; the vendor neutral method allows for future changes that won’t make migrating data a complete nightmare.
Control is another highly prized aspect of shopping for a new PACS. You’re not going to be satisfied by putting your data in a PACS silo – you need control over your data. Unfortunately, many PACS vendors try to add additional fees any time they want to migrate data. Furthermore, a good number of vendors are engineering their systems around multiple-hospital systems, which doesn’t work for the 2,000-plus critical access hospitals throughout the country and many more rural clinics and small hospitals that have different needs than the big systems.
As you whittle down your list of contenders, pay close attention to vendors that offer zero client administration. Look for annual software upgrades that carry no additional costs and don’t require anything of you in terms of installing the upgrades. Also, make sure you’re getting a browser agnostic viewer so you can access your data from anywhere and from any device, including mobile devices.
When you talk to your prospective vendors, ask them if their solutions are based on the DICOM standard and if their solutions are scalable. Your goal is to provide better patient care, which is why your vendor should provide you with a DICOM-friendly solution that can smoothly work between workstations.
At OffSite Image Management, Inc., we offer all of the above. Our solutions focus on providing value, and we never hide any costs. Our cloud-based solution comes with disaster recover measures that will ensure you have access to your data at all times. Contact us today and let’s talk about what you need in a PACS that will fit your needs now as well as your future needs.