Pay to play?
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| Jeff Byers, content editor |
To paraphrase Nicolas Cage in the 1996 action film "The Rock:" Because it sounds better. While I myself do still purchase the occasional record or two, I’ve never spent $600 on roughly 40 minutes worth of music.
Yet, I understand Cage's sentiment. And so do radiologists.
In a recent study in the Journal of the American College of Radiology, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) found the widespread adoption of PACS has led to a number of improvements in patient care–increased productivity, elimination of film, increased image accessibility–but along with those benefits, PACS adoption has put a wedge in communication between radiologists and referring physicians.
Allison Anne Tillack, MA, of the department of anthropology, history and social medicine, and Richard S. Breiman, MD, of the department of radiology, found after three months of ethnography marked by observations and interviews with radiologists and neurologists at a large academic medical center, final analysis revealed that radiologists believed they are interacting less with referring physicians and have less clinical information about patients. They also found it more difficult to establish communication with referring physicians due to the lack of face-to-face contact.
The changing of formats is an awkward and disruptive time. How do I get my images into the latest, greatest database?, radiologists and CMIOs ask. Will interoperability be seamless? Do I really need to purchase “Nevermind“ in a digitized format even though my cassette copy works just fine?
And yet even though formats change, it’s good to keep in mind that formats should be interoperable with each other. According to Michael J. Gray of Gray Consulting who presented during a webinar hosted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and GNAX Health, implementation of a vendor-neutral archive (VNA) solves most of the problems associated with PACS, can save money over the long term and can prepare an enterprise to participate in a health information exchange (HIE).
However, one of the barriers to VNA implementation is the high costs–“bigger than your biggest PACS,” said Gray. A VNA will probably require multiple years and multiple budgets to implement, he noted.
So, for now, whether it's a $600 LP or an expensive VNA PACS, some preferences mean you have to pay to play. How are you dealing with disruptive technologies and how are you making them interoperable?
Jeff Byers
Content Editor
jbyers@trimedmedia.com