Just as the advent of regular postal deliveries changed communications drastically, so has the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web. With the use of electronic communications, including digital imagery and other types of data, communications are now much quicker and more cost effective. A web-based PACS brings this type of lightning speed and ease of use to a medical facility as well.
PACS RIS are two related software and hardware systems that are used on computers. PACS means picture archiving and communications system, and RIS stands for radiology information system. The PACS RIS system may be a mini-pacs system format or it could be a web-based pacs. A pacs server and software system are known as a mini-pacs when they are used to read only one type of image modality, such as mammograms, rather than digital images taken from multiple modalities. PACS on the web uses secure transmission provided by a secure socket layer or a virtual private network to allow transmission of digital medical images and other data over the Internet. RIS takes radiology digital images and data and allows that information to be stored, distributed, and archived.
One reason why medical facilities, especially small and mid-sized ones, are switching to PACS on the web is that in recent years the price has come down dramatically. Although PACS has been around for a while, it was typically only available to the largest hospitals and facilities because the cost of the software and equipment were out of reach for smaller facilities. Because all computer technology has come down in price over the years, this has had an beneficial impact on the cost of purchasing a pacs server and software.
Another reason that medical offices are upgrading to pacs on the web is the speed it offers. It was not that long ago that images were taken on film, which then took time to be developed. After this, if a consultation was necessary, the films would have to be sent by postal mail to the consulting physician. This was a very time consuming process, but thankfully it can be speeded up considerably with the use of the Internet. Now digital medical images can be translated by the pacs server quickly using the DICOM format, and those images can be sent in seconds rather than days to physicians located nearly anywhere in the world for consultations. This has also enabled better teaching experiences for medical students, who can now be exposed to a vast array of digital images via the Internet as well.
In order to save money and time, it makes sense to upgrade to a web-based PACS RIS or mini-pacs system.
Wayne Hemrick writes about--web-based pacs.