For years, radiology professionals have heard, read or worked with vendor neutral archiving (VNA) solutions. This means most everyone in the industry knows about VNA’s ability to provide a central place where data can be stored and accessed, but now the attention is being geared toward working with many disparate departments that have different types of data, all of which should be as easy to access as radiology data.
Information technology isn’t the specialty of the vast majority of clinicians and radiologists, and because VNA deployments require the expertise of those working in IT, there are a number of questions you can ask yourself before embarking on developing a VNA acquisition and implementation strategy for your organization.
First and foremost, only choose a VNA vendor that offers “true” VNA. What does that mean? The following items are what you get with a high-quality VNA solution:
- Browser agnostic capabilities
- Supports API-level integration
- Supports DICOM and non-DICOM content
- Hardware independent
- RIS updates spread automatically
- Supports on-premise, hybrid and cloud storage architecture
- Aggregates query results from disparate PACS
Other Important Items
Because data migration can be a strain for most organizations, make sure your vendor can explain exactly how the data, whether it’s large image files or non-DICOM-related data, will migrate to and from the VNA. Sometimes data will need to go more to different storage platforms, so become familiar with this aspect of the vendor’s solution.
If your organization has experienced fluctuations in workloads, you’re going to need to partner with a vendor that offers a scalable VNA solution. Ask vendors how they scale their offerings and make sure their methods are a good match with your workflow.
Disaster recovery and business continuity solutions must also be considered, so ask providers to explain how they will duplicate your data in a redundant storage process, making your data available at all times, regardless of what kind of disaster you’re experiencing.
Whether it’s a disaster situation or just a normal workday, when you need your data it should be in front of you in short order. Ask vendors how long it takes to retrieve data and what might prevent you from gaining immediate access.
At OffSite Image Management, we’re focused on providing industry-leading VNA solutions. Our VNA solution includes everything that you need in a “true” VNA offering, including a zero-footprint viewer, master patient index and top-notch VNA data lifecycle management. For more information about how we can improve your workflow situation while saving you money, contact us today.