Get Ahead of the Game With Enterprise Archiving
Electronic health records are becoming the go-to for patients and medical personnel alike. These records are full of a variety of data, including medical images, which can be quite large and must be available for quick sharing and online viewing. Enterprise archiving has therefore become a priority.
It’s no secret that many providers are facing challenges where their medical images are concerned, whether it’s access to them, security, disaster recovery or enterprise archiving. Medical records, for example, were once managed in several departments. Now, these records have been centralized, which allows for easier access. Can protocols for medical images follow suit?
The problem that most providers run into is that their imaging devices in different departments (oncology, neurology, etc.) come from different vendors, which means there are often proprietary issues to consider. File formats are proprietary, making it a hassle to move in and out of the system. The solution for these departments was to use CD burning technology to export the images.
There are a variety of problems that arise from CDs. First, patients take their CDs and mismanage them. It’s not uncommon for the CD to be scratched, making it unreadable. They are also lost by the patient, perhaps falling into the hands of an unauthorized individual who now has personal medical information they shouldn’t have.
What’s arising out of the ashes of many CD burners is a new enterprise archiving method that is delivered through the cloud. Instead of being anchored to time consuming, space wasting technology that risks HIPAA violations, providers can archive and access medical images without any proprietary issues blocking the way.
Cloud-based PACS are delivering the access to images that providers have long needed. Furthermore, vendors operating these cloud repositories are taking the heavy burden off of medical IT personnel because the cloud-based vendors do all the maintenance and upgrades.
All diagnostic images can be centralized and made easily available, and without a huge cost. This is a problem that is solved for many rural facilities that lack the budget for a costly PACS upgrade. They simply sign up with a cloud vendor and get almost 100 percent uptime of their medical images.
The best vendors are using vendor neutral archiving technology so proprietary issues don’t evolve. They are also using the best, most secure data centers, and they are using business continuity strategies that keep images available to healthcare providers regardless of where they are.
OffSite Image Management, Inc., is a company that caters to rural providers. We offer quality while keeping costs at a rate that is affordable for even the most cash-strapped provider. With OffSite, you never pay for things you don’t need. Contact us today and let’s discuss your diagnostic imaging needs.