Regional maintenance approach for PACS within the healthcare enterprise

With the proliferation of Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) throughout the U.S. Healthcare System, there is an immense need for alternative approaches to maintenance support of PACS systems. One method of cost reduction is through the implementation of regional maintenance programs. While many PACS vendors are willing to negotiate various forms of shared service arrangements, multi-facility and regional negotiations are rarely implemented. This paper will present such an approach by describing a four step process: (1) Identify maintenance tasks across the entire region/enterprise; (2) Identify maintenance resources within the region/enterprise that can be assigned against those tasks; (3) Identify vendor unique resources that must be added to regional/enterprise resources to complete the required coverage of maintenance tasks; and (4) Negotiate with all member sites of the region/enterprise and the vendor for the assignment of resources against all maintenance tasks. Additionally, these steps will be balanced through identification of the principal tradeoffs tied to maintenance resourcing, namely: quality, speed and cost. If this approach is implemented, it presents a mechanism for achieving maintenance service cost reductions, while supporting clinical operations, through the benefits of economies of scale and collective bargaining.