Transition from partial to full PACS at a 450000 exams/year hospital

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to describe the transition of a 1,100 beds tertiary hospital from 50 percent softcopy operation to full PACS operation. For the past 2 years, radiologists and clinicians have been using PACS to provide softcopy services to the outpatient clinics and inpatient wards of orthopedics surgery, neurosurgery and neurology as well as emergency room, surgical intensive care unit, medical intensive unit, pediatrics intensive care unit and neonatal intensive care unit. The examinations requested by these departments account for about 50 percent of hospital's radiological exams. In September 1996, we began the second phase of PACS implementation and installed additional workstations in the remaining wards and clinics, interfaced to PACS additional imaging modalities, and increased the capacity of both the image server and optical juke boxes. As of January 1997, we are in the final phase of moving away from conventional film system to full PACS operation.