PACS Used While On-Call: A National Survey of Radiology Program Directors and Chief Residents

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of different diagnostic image viewing platforms used by radiologists while on-call, and to assess the opinions and preferences of radiology program directors and chief residents regarding their use. An online survey was sent electronically to radiology residency program directors and chief residents via the Association of University Radiologists. Forty-two radiology program directors and 25 chief residents completed the survey, yielding response rates of 24.9 and 8.5 %, respectively. From the survey results, 10 different Picture Archiving Communications Systems (PACS) were identified; GE (25 %), Philips (17 %), and Agfa Impax (15 %) were the most prevalent. Interestingly, only 5 % of all respondents use a secondary "Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine" viewer for oncall studies. Perceptions of PACS functionality were generally neutral to weakly positive. Most respondents strongly agreed that it is important to have a single integrated PACS for viewing oncall studies and agreed that the PACS should be integrated into the Electronic Medical Records (EMR). The overwhelming majority of respondents use their institution's PACS while oncall. The results show there is still a wide variety of PACS platforms used by different institutions; however, GE, Phillips, and Agfa were some of the most prevalent. Most radiologists surveyed have neutral to slightly positive perceptions about the functionality and ease of use of their PACS. Finally, while radiologists agree that PACS should be integrated with EMR, only 53 % of respondents currently have this arrangement.

Anterior-To-Psoas Approach Measurements, Feasibility, Non-Neurological Structures at Risk and Influencing Factors: A Bilateral Analysis From L1-L5 Using Computed Tomography Imaging

“…Radiographic, demographic, and anthropometric data were retrieved using IMPAX6 (Agfa-Gavaert) picture archiving and communication system (PACS). 9,10 Radiographic measurements of the ATP approach were conducted by 3 independent reviewers (JR, SM, and GH). To perform each measurement, a midsagittal view was first used to identify the disk space center.…”

The Current State and Path Forward For Enterprise Image Viewing: HIMSS-SIIM Collaborative White Paper

“…For the purpose of this white paper, we propose the definition of an enterprise viewer as, “a thin-client or zero-client application used on any off-the-shelf device to distribute, display, and manipulate multi-specialty image, video, audio, and scanned documents stored in separate centralized archives through, or standalone from, the EHR.” Note that most legacy picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) have an associated thin-client or zero footprint application, but this may not provide diagnostic interpretation capabilities, the ability to look to a non-PACS archive, adequate speed, or the toolset depth of the full version. A traditional full version PACS typically includes local storage of images, tailored specialty specific diagnostic tools, a higher degree of operational specialty workflow support, but more limited features for viewing from within EHR context [ 16 ]. The purpose of this white paper is to describe the reasons for enterprise viewer growth, enterprise viewing technical infrastructure, viewer classifications, and viewer toolsets.…”