Hospital and patient benefits of a full hospital PACS

The discussion is no longer whether to use a Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS). The fundamental question is whether to use a departmental or modality oriented system or to implement a Full Hospital PACS. There is a vast difference in the approaches that goes beyond simple cost justification. A Full Hospital PACS promises to fundamentally change the paradigm of radiological consultation as digital images with improved availability, accuracy, speed and economy become available to all of the physicians of the hospital any place and at any time. Certainly there will be savings in film and staffing for film rooms as the hospital goes primarily filmless. The benefits to the hospital and to the patient go far beyond these savings, resulting in hours saved per day for each radiologist, clinician, and support staff at the hospital. Measures of radiologist productivity are changing as the images become available to the clinician at the same time as they are available to the radiologist. Marked increases in patient exams performed have been measured. Radiology procedure backlogs have been reduced. The benefit to the patient is access to better medical care on short notice and with reduced costs. The ramifications of a Full Hospital PACS go beyond cost justification on savings using existing methodology to the consideration of whole new possibilities such as real time studies, time sequenced trend analysis, and an evolution to telemedicine.