The healthcare community has caught on to the vendor neutral archiving (VNA) trend in a big way. As the search for the perfect picture archiving and communication system (PACS) ensues, many administrators are beginning to wonder what constitutes true VNA.
Many people have differing views on what VNA is, which is why some providers implement a PACS and true VNA solution only to find out the “true” part wasn’t quite up to their standards. If you’re currently shopping around, make sure your consultant or vendor can offer you solutions that give you the power to store and retrieve medical imaging and data from any PACS, and then share that data between storage platforms regardless of the system that’s being used.
When storage solutions first went digital, most vendors built proprietary systems with an architecture that wouldn’t allow communication with disparate systems. Implementing a PACS and true VNA solution offsets the roadblocks and opens the way for clean and clear communication, which improves patient outcomes.
One of the best reasons to drop proprietary systems is that with true VNA, you’re given more options in changing your PACS vendor, which is something many providers are doing today to comply with various HIPPA regulations as it relates to technology and electronic healthcare records. With true VNA, providers can put in a new PACS and have little to no worry about migrating data or losing any control of it.
The healthcare industry is getting more comfortable with the separation of archiving and PACS functionality, especially as more vendors embrace true VNA architecture. This is important because there is a pattern of exponential growth of data occurring right now and will continue well into the future as it relates to medical images, the sheer volume of which requires healthcare providers to think in advance about how their silos of data will be handled. When you consider the technology out there today being used on a daily basis, the multi-slice CT scanner, MRIs and other big-data-producing machines, it’s easy to see why storage is becoming more of an issue.
Managing all this data is something many hospitals aren’t equipped to handle, especially the smaller ones with limited resources. Some of the rural facilities struggle so hard with resources, they’re still using CDs to store and share images. What’s pulling them out of decades-old processes is something called Virtual CD, which uses the cloud to transmit images.
Physical storage space can become jam-packed quickly when using old technology like this. However, partnering with a third party to store images offsite is becoming more of an option for these critical care hospitals that need quality solutions at a low cost. Utilizing top-notch data centers, providers are able to gain total access to their medical imaging, and send it to the appropriate people through VNA technology.
OffSite Image Management, Inc., is currently offering solutions to providers of all sizes, but has found its niche with rural providers that desperately need to jump into the latest technological advancements, but don’t have the same budgets as the big hospitals in urban areas. For total access to the latest VNA technology, contact OffSite today.