How Can Radiology PACS Help Your Medical Facility Run More Efficiently

Making the switch from film images to digital medical images is a great way to improve the workflow and efficiency of your medical office.  You can save a great deal of time and therefore money by making the switch to digital imaging.  Radiology PACS help you accomplish this.

Radiology PACS are Picture Archiving and Communication Systems that allow you to produce, view, archive and transmit digital images.  Digital radiology systems utilize both specialized software and hardware, yet many of the systems can be run on personal computers and networks with which you likely are already familiar.  

Like all digital products, the cost of radiology pacs systems has dropped over the past several years.  This means that Radiology PACS are now within the reach of small to medium-sized medical offices and facilities.  

Storage of your digital medical images will also save your medical facility money.  In the past, prints had to be made, which were then stored in file folders in large storerooms.  It was also a big task to retrieve film images, because you had to wade through all of the files to find the ones you needed.  This is a thing of the past with digital radiology systems.  With a couple of mouse clicks, you can sort through thousands of digital images files to find the one you want in a matter of seconds.  Costs typically associated with storage, including storage space, paper, files, as well as chemicals used to print film images, are completely eliminated with digital radiology systems.

Radiology PACS also help you stay in compliance of HIPPA regulations for the storage of patient records and medical images much more easily than in the past, when up to seven years of hard-copy records had to be stored and backed up.  Digital images can be backed up onto CDs and DVDs as well as offsite archiving on hard drives and in databases by using radiology pacs systems.

Radiology pacs systems also allow you to take advantage of teleradiology, where digitized medical images and records can be sent to authorized personnel via the Internet.  Radiology PACS enables physicians anywhere with Internet service to access medical digital images, thus enabling real-time collaboration with physicians down the hall or around the world.  In this way, radiology PACS benefits patients, by giving them better care at a fraction of the traditional cost.

Another advantage that comes from using digital radiology systems is that it utilizes the same computer technology with which you and your office staff are already familiar.  Computers are turned into workstations with radiology systems software.  Peripherals such as scanners and printers are used in conjunction with radiology pacs systems to allow you to scan hard copy documents and turn them into digital images, or to print out digital images.  

All this efficiency is possible through the use of PACS and digital medical imagery.