Cloud PACS Improve Performance Across the Board
There is no denying the place of cloud PACS in the healthcare environment today. While that might have been a false statement several years ago, providers today are finding a variety of benefits in cloud-based solutions for medical imaging.
In fact, cloud-based solutions aimed at the healthcare industry is projected by one market study to hit $6.7 billion by 2018, and it’s due to the rapid adoption of cloud-based processes, including those related to medical imaging. The reason being – medical images are projected to use up around 30 percent of storage space. Think about it on the small scale and you get an accurate picture of the magnitude of the situation: a 100-bed hospital performing the average amount of radiology exams every year will build up five terabytes of data that needs a home.
Not only do the medical images need a place for archiving, those studies also need to be accessed at a moment’s notice, queried in some cases for easy access and shared across multiple platforms, including mobile. More and more mobile applications are becoming available through vendors who recognize that images need to be viewed on more than just the office radiology viewer.
The best producers of these applications used on mobile devices know that while the solution is full of complexities, it needs to be easy to use. The developers having the most success are using what’s known as “zero-footprint” software that requires no installation of software beyond the app itself. The perk is that it can be used on any browser compatible with a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer.
The goal for years in radiology was to provide a quick and accurate radiological read of exams to referring physicians. Thanks to cloud solutions such as cloud PACS this has become a reality.
What’s behind all this is something called vendor neutral archiving, which the best vendors are utilizing to make image sharing technology compatible with any browser, regardless of the disparate PACS being used from one department to another or from a provider to another. VNA, essentially, is a comprehensive cloud-based solution for medical imaging. Images can more easily be consolidated and managed using VNA.
The advantages on the physician and radiology side are obvious. However, there are also cost advantages when using cloud PACS. In fact, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center reported saving $14 million annually when it took on a cloud-based medical image solution. Furthermore, there are multitude of security measures that help protect cloud clients from HIPAA violations, downtime, and workflow management issues common with on-site PACS and images burned onto CDs.
OffSite Image Management, Inc. has led the way in cloud-based medical image solutions. We’ve established ourselves as a reliable source of cloud-based image solutions that improves cost savings, business continuity, and disaster recovery protocols. Contact us today and find out how we can save you money while also improving how you approach patient care.