It has become standard practice over the years for imaging providers to maintain data for at least five years, but according to an article published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology, perhaps that data should be kept indefinitely. 

The biggest problem we have as practice administrators or physicians is that we see management reports illustrating the end result and process failures contributing to revenue declines are not evident. As long as we, as an industry, insist on the lowest price, we will continue to get what we pay for in terms of over-automation and failures of process controls.

The imaging division at John Muir Health in California’s Contra Costa County has been supplying topnotch image-handling capabilities to end users located across the system’s sprawling family tree—three hospitals, seven outpatient imaging centers, a 1,000-plus physician network and a dozen or so sites providing outpatient, urgent-care and surgery services—since 2001. That’s when Sectra PACS entered the picture for the Walnut Creek-based organization.

The IT team at Western Reserve Hospital, a 105-bed, physician-owned institution in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, already had considerable experience with remotely hosted solutions. In 2015, the time came to consider a remote option for its new PACS. 

While helping to steer 105-bed Western Reserve Hospital in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, toward a remotely hosted PACS solution, Jeffrey Unger, MD, repeatedly voiced one crucial concern: Would he and his fellow radiologists have to wait at their workstations, precious seconds ticking away, while PACS servers sitting hundreds of miles away processed massive datasets?

A lot of conversations about value in radiology revolve around patients. How can specialists and their practices keep patients happy? What will make them the most comfortable? These are important things to ask, of course, but a recent article published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology is a reminder that demonstrating value to referring physicians is also absolutely crucial. 

There is no doubt that vendor neutral archives (VNAs) have gained favor over the last several years in managing medical images. But there is some debate over whether hospitals really need both a VNA and a PACS. If PACS can do double duty as VNA and PACS, why do you need both? As we see it, you don’t, as long as you have a true enterprise PACS and here’s why.

Radiologist Marc Liebeskind, MD, doesn’t need to strain his memory to recall a time when he saw a health insurer’s authorization process come between sound clinical judgment and a patient’s clearly indicated care.