How does a PACS work?
Medical imaging reports can be easily shared electronically using the Picture Archiving and Communication System, or PACS. Healthcare organisations now consider PACS to be an essential piece of equipment in hospitals and medical facilities. In addition to delivering a technology solution sepstream.com that impacts quality of care, modern image storage and reporting systems enhance the convenience of providers as well. PACS Benefits.
A PACS’s Benefits
We selected only those benefits with the greatest impact from a long list of benefits. The benefits you receive impact your quality of care and efficiency on a daily basis. Do you have a positive impact on your imaging workflow because of your PACS? Can these areas be improved in your organisation?
1. Analysis & Viewing Enhancements
PACS can include digital imaging technology, which is one of its main benefits. PACS can provide tools to help technologists and physicians examine study images more closely. These tools, as well as others, are included in most PACS solutions.
Windows Width/Level and Brightness/Contrast Adjustments
The brightness and window level can be adjusted to modify the grayscale range, while the window width determines the range of Hounsfield units for a particular image. A contrast adjustment improves the sharpness to further distinguish anatomical structures.
Zooming and panning
When you zoom or pan, you can bring the area of concern closer and centre it within the frame to focus on it.
Flip and rotate
Occasionally, you may need to rotate or view a mirror of the original image to see proper anatomical orientation. When viewing your study images on the screen, this is preferable to tilting your head uncomfortably.
The measurement process
Your PACS will be more valuable if it has a full set of measurement tools. It is not uncommon for you to want to double-check a measurement you have acquired. The PACS could also be used to obtain measurement values after imaging, as dictated by your lab protocols. Practices that serve populations of uncooperative patients (sedated infants, veterinary, etc.) can benefit greatly from the built-in tools for post-acquisition measurement and analysis. It can be a great safety net to have the ability to take post-acquisition measurements in your PACS if someone forgets to take a measurement on a busy day with a high patient load. In some cases, systems go a step further and integrate with AI vendors to analyse images automatically.
Collaborating and communicating
Providers can improve patient care and save time by marking key images for further review, annotating images, and reordering images to tell the patient’s story.
2. Management of data has been improved
As opposed to a DICOM viewer, a PACS viewer is capable of retrieving and viewing images associated with a given patient’s record, regardless of imaging modality.When using a cloud-based PACS, you can access your PACS through your browser (no VPN required), view images stored in your PACS, and even retrieve images from your VNA.
Sharing
Shared study images can be time-consuming and insecure due to the delivery method itself, which can be time-consuming and insecure.A lot of imaging departments and labs copy study images to discs or USB drives to give to physicians (for consultation or referral) or to patients (for their own records images on thermal paper for the patient.Modern cloud-PACS solutions include a much more convenient and secure method of sharing a link to study images via a smartphone or email.These methods are encrypted and require passwords to ensure that only the intended recipient can view the images.
3. Mobility unmatched
Access to patient images and reports is perhaps the best benefit of these systems. The results can be shared electronically with other facilities, as well as performed almost anywhere. Reports can also be submitted through portable media, and images can be transported or archived.
You can access your patient records anywhere with a cloud-based PACS. For medical professionals who need to work on-the-go, access to anywhere, anytime is more important than ever as hospital networks expand, private practices add satellite offices, and many medical networks provide mobile imaging. If the PACS is a browser-based application, it may not require licences and software installations for remote viewing.
