PACS Radiology Solutions: A Texas Sized Example.

Taking PACS Radiology Offsite

Hill Country Memorial Hospital located in Fredericksburg, Texas, serves as an example of how PACS radiology technology, when organized correctly, provides efficiencies that every provider deserves.

Hill Country Memorial only has 86 beds, but it’s like many of its kind throughout the U.S. in that it is community supported, often by several communities spread out in rural areas. And like many providers throughout the nation, radiology IT staff at Hill Country Memorial knew it was time to upgrade the facility’s PACS. However, being a small hospitals means budgets are tight, which is another similarity the hospital shares with others its size.

Interoperability, smoother workflow, disaster recovery strategies, and issues related to proprietary equipment are all target areas when upgrading PACS. When Hill Country Memorial upgraded its system, they were able to consolidate through a centralized system. The workflow, which was once disjointed, now runs smoothly.

Before the upgrade, doctors would have to go from their primary reading stations to mammography stations located in another department, which doctors believe led to less efficient care. With the new system, the mammography studies can be read at their primary reading stations.

PACS radiology systems are a hot topic today because of all the new regulations regarding electronic imaging and electronic health records in general. Most of the old PACS are outdated and are in need of an upgrade. While some providers are looking to go with an entirely new system, rural providers can’t afford such expenditures. Fortunately, there is a PACS radiology solution that can bring top-notch efficiency while saving on costs.

Vendor neutral archiving (VNA) has stepped up to give doctors like those at Hill Country Memorial a way to view exams without having to worry about which viewer they have in front of them. Working with cloud-based providers of PACS solutions, providers can see major upgrades in the way they work with image studies while also saving money.

PACS and VNA together through an offsite solution is the answer to disaster recovery and business continuity problems because the data is often stored in multiple datacenters in different geographical locations. For instance, let’s say a tornado rips through a datacenter, wiping out the servers and all physical structures that allow data to be transmitted to your hospital. It’s not a problem because the exact same data has been duplicated and is available through a datacenter far removed from the one that was damaged.

Gone are the days when a viewer down the hall couldn’t handle data from a PACS from another department. With offsite solutions using VNA, providing better patient care at a lower cost and with more efficiencies is a reality.

OffSite Image Management, Inc. is a company that specializes in assisting rural providers with the best quality offsite archiving solutions. Not only are image studies and HL7 data stored securely, they’re also made accessible to whomever, regardless of their viewer brand. Our solutions are DICOM ready and are setting the pace for technological developments for offsite storage of medical images.