Guidelines for cost-effective implementation of Picture Archiving and Communication Systems. An approach building on practical experiences in three European hospitals.

This paper describes a comprehensive approach for the assessment of the impact of (partial) Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS). The approach is developed, based on actual clinical experience in three European hospitals and tested in these environments. The approach departs from a thorough analysis of the working procedures and information flows before implementation, both descriptive and quantitative. On the basis of this analysis, quantitative (and hence testable) objectives of the implementation are defined. The implementation strategy is defined after comparison of various scenarios, taking costs and effects for both the final and the transition phases into account. The approach is supported by a comprehensive evaluation protocol and a software package (PACER). The approach is demonstrated in this paper by applying it on a hypothetical PACS implementation for CT, ultrasound and for the part of the radiology department serving ICU. The objectives of this PACS are: (1)--to shorten the turn around time between the radiology department and ICU from 4 h to 30 min, (2)--to save 2000 m2 of film per year and (3)--to save personnel time. In this case the PACS is introduced in three phases and completed after three years. The cost analysis shows that, if started in 1995, a financial break even point is reached after 6 years, when comparing costs for the film-based system with those of the PACS. Experiences in the three sites show that the approach helps to harvest potential benefits, allowing a cost-effective implementation of PACS.