Effects of a large-scale deployment of soft-copy devices for picture archiving and communication systems viewing

Abstract

A study was developed to investigate several aspects of deployment of stand-alone computers anda webbased server for displaying digital images. The costs associated with installation, upgrades, training, and maintenance of both systems were documented, as well as patterns of usage and preferences of physicians for the two types of systems. A clinical archive was created to store relevant images with a webbased front end. Users were classified according to their imaging requirements and were given access to images from either the diagnostic archive (full study sets) or the clinical archive. The range of functionality of the web-based system was significantly Iower than that of the stand-alone system; however, the costs associated with the administration of the stand-alone systems were far higher than those associated with a web server. A clinical archive was created to store relevant images with a web-based front end. This study illustrates the different approaches to distribution of images to clinicians with the costs of administration of each system. Copyright 9 2000 by W.B. Saunders Company A S THE DEPARTMENT of Radiology at theUniversity of Florida rapidly approached the point where all studies were digital and film was no longer needed, access to studies by clinicians became a top priority. The technical, economic, cultural, and political implications of removing film from the hospital and clinics and ultimately from the enterprise were considered before deployment. Since the interactions of physicians with images were not well understood, a study was developed to investigate several aspects of deploy-14 ment and physician access. -One consideration of the deployment was the cost associated with installation, upgrades, training, and maintenance of the systems. Two systems were tried: a stand-alone workstation on which images could be stored and viewed, and a webbased server. The costs associated with managing

Standard Web-based clinical radiology images and reports at the point of care

“…Critical to the success of introducing this technology in the healthcare environment included adequate training for the users, technical resources, and help desk support. 3,4,5,6 Empirical studies related to use of PACS in combination with web technology were few. Wadley, et al 1 surveyed 31 physicians after implementing a web-based imaging system.…”