Why do Problems Pop up With Vendor Neutral Archiving?.

Make Sure You Have a True Vendor Neutral Archiving Solution

Why are so many healthcare professionals having usability and interface issues with their vendor neutral archiving solutions? According to SearchHealthIT’s survey, almost 15 percent of respondents said they were facing challenges with their vendor neutral archiving solution. Could it be a lack of customer support? Are they not properly trained, or are there no support analytics to draw from?

It’s possible that, in some cases, it isn’t actually a true vendor neutral archiving solution. To avoid having this happen to you, look at this checklist to make sure your solution includes the following:

• It can store the whole DICOM SOP classes suite
• It can handle ADT updates
• Supports the most inclusive DICOM query/retrieve specifications as a service provider for stored information in the archive
• Stores objects in a non-proprietary format
• Can prepare a PACS through HL7 for ingestion of images from another, disparate PACS

If the organization you’re talking to can include all of this in their solution, they are likely offering a true vendor neutral archiving solution.

If you are going to incur the cost of this new solution, which is supposed to improve workflow, you need to be assured that the system won’t require hours and hours of training to use it. There are many things a good vendor neutral archiving solution can do, but providers run the risk of avoiding them and staying with a PACS that is no longer a good fit, only because the system isn’t user-friendly.

The goal is seamless access and storage of images across departments and even across multiple facilities. This is what true vendor neutral archiving brings to the table. You should be able to store and/or retrieve data from any PACS vendor and easily migrate between the storage platforms. It should be cost effective and painless.

For multisite environments, adopting a vendor neutral archiving solution seems like the perfect fit. However, to avoid missteps that many in the survey said they are having, it pays to go with a vendor that utilizes multiple Level IV data centers where security is top notch and business continuity solutions are a main focus.

Make sure when you adopt a new solution, there are no revolving fees, start up fees or migration fees. The solution should be scalable and without storage limits. Perhaps most importantly for many hospitals and clinics, make sure all the data is managed by the customer and not controlled by the vendor.

At OffSite Image Management, Inc., we offer our clients a predictable budget friendly fee structure with our true vendor neutral archiving solutions. On top of that, we can guarantee a cost savings of up to 60 percent. This is huge for our rural clients that operate under very limited, tight budgets. Contact us today and find out what we can do for you.