People who are working with radiology or any other healthcare field must be familiar with “shop talk” or medical lingo that can seem like a foreign language to the people outside the medical community. However, two medical jargon familiar to most radiologists and physicians is PACS medical imaging and RIS. PACS is completely related to the radiology field and with the combination of RIS, can deliver excellent results not only to the patients but to the radiologists, practitioners, and other healthcare professionals.
What is PACS?
Picture archiving and communication system that is popularly known as PACS is all about an imaging technology that manages the retrieval and economical storage, presentation, and distribution of medical images. PACS helps to transmit the electronic images to digital. It revives the healthcare professionals from the burden of manually maintain the file that contains all the details. Plus, it also helps the healthcare centre to capture, share and view all kinds of external and internal reports regarding the patient.
Basic components of PACS
PACS consists of four basic components. These are including:
- Secure network to the database for the image to be used in the digital medium.
- Imaging modalities- This is the imaging system that is being used for doing the actual scanning of the patient while producing the medical image.
- Dedicated workstation for the radiologists and doctors to analyze the image being taken by the system.
- Archives for storage- This is one of the main components and it secures a storage area in which the image and other documents will be available for the people who have authentication to access it.
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Benefits of the combination of PACS software and RIS
Radiologists always recommend using PACS software for its outstanding advantages.
- Radiology PACS are always arranged beside a radiology information system which is called RIS.
- RIS or radiology information system is a certain kind of system that radiologists use to record the patient’s history. They also use it to schedule appointments. The initial use of the PACS is to store and retrieve the images.
- After PACS is getting combined with RIS, the radiology department of a hospital functions perfectly. This is because; the images can be securely stored, transferred, and retrieved whenever it needs.
Main advantages of using PACS Software
PACS is mainly used in radiology and here are the benefits the radiologists grab from this.
Streamlined patient’s data
Most of the radiology reports are stored in conventional methods. As a result, it was hard to find the data when required and they were taking a lot of time to find out. On the other hand, PACS streamlined the patient’s records and they are digitally stored. Rather than having to sift through a pile of paperwork, physicians can easily access patient files just by using the software.
Better visualization of the images
Although there is a wide range of tools are available to develop the quality and visualization of the images, there was still a shortage of technical excellence. With the help of PACS, it is quite possible to thoroughly visualize the image and that can be used for creating 3D images of various organs, tissues, blood vessels, and bones. In this way, data can be interpreted and analyzed better.
Cost-effective
When you are using PACS, there is no need to print a hard copy. With the cloud-based system, it is quite easy to analyze the images whenever the radiologists want. Due to the digital device, the analysis can be easily done without any glitches. In this way, it will save time and money as you don’t have to invest in printing.
Access from the multiple platforms
With PACS software, the pictures can be digitally stored and can be accessed from remote devices. This technique enables the authorities to view the image from the offsite. As the popularity of teleradiology is increasing, an image can be viewed and accessed from different types of physical locations at the same time by slashing any requirement of additional devices.
Integration of the electronic images internally
The digital platforms enable the images from one department of the healthcare centre to be accessed from any other department of the centre. In order to access the images, there is no need to create multiple copies for each department to access the image. In this way, it saves time and escapes the employee to do the tedious task of maintaining different types of copies of the same image. Plus, it also slashes the chance of misplacing the copies.
Instant access to patient’s images
This is one of the most important advantages of PACS that doctors can easily and quickly access patient reports and images. Due to this system, patients can perform their tests anywhere they want since the images can be easily shared electronically. This also enables convenient submission and transmission of the data. In this way, it will be easy to access them anywhere the physicians want.
Chronological management
PACS also allows the doctors to know the chronological measure of the patient’s health. This system allows the doctors to analyze thoroughly and accurately in a shorter period of time.
Environmental advantages
These kinds of advancements also end up helping the environment in many ways. It mainly contributes heavily to lower the carbon emissions that have been produced from on-site data storage centres will reduce the energy consumption that is needed to run and cool the system. Lower energy demands help the organizations to adopt cloud-based PACS that will fulfil a greater corporate social responsibility.
Benefits from a patient point of view
- Patients can easily receive accurate diagnoses due to the high-quality images.
- They are less radiation exposure and in this way, there will less chance of side-effect.
- No need to retake the images.
- Shorter examination time for the patients as there is no need to reexamine.
- Less possibility of side-effects.
Bottom Line
To meet the growing needs of the patients, physicians are now adopting the latest technology that supports the result and better patient care. PACS is one of them and it comes with plenty of advantages both for patients and doctors.
