Dear PACS Insider,
Welcome to the first edition of the PACS Insider, a periodic newsletter providing an update on recent developments in digital image management as reported in our PACS Digital Community.
The prospect of a PACS divorce is likely to send shudders through the spines of most users of digital imaging systems, but it need not do so, according to Dr. Neelam Dugar. She thinks that changing your PACS vendor can end up being a positive development, provided you take adequate precautions to protect yourself.
Dr. Dugar is chair of the U.K. Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) Imaging Informatics Group, and you can read her practical advice by clicking here.
Spain's largest-ever PACS tender took place at the ultramodern Hospital Universitari i Politècnic La Fe in Valencia. An important part of the project was to integrate special software into the system for routine clinical use in chest and abdominal radiology and oncologic imaging. The software is accessible from any PACS workstation at the hospital. Get the story here.
Delegates at the 2011 Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (CARS) congress in Berlin learned that enterprise RIS and PACS integration with electronic medical records is well under way in Hong Kong. The scheme has implications for end users in Europe, and you can find out more by clicking here.
Less than 5% of total PACS installations in Europe in 2010 were connected to a vendor-neutral archive, but the case for data centers acting as central repositories of medical images is fast being appreciated in advanced PACS markets. Click here to read more about the trend toward central image archiving.
Just as the early days of MRI remain a highly controversial topic, the development of PACS in the 1980s arouses great passion and emotion. The real European pioneers were from the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, writes radiologist and historian Dr. Adrian Thomas. To access his column, click here.
