Finding a PACS that Supports Mammography Modalities; It’s Not As Easy As You Think
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Editor’s Note: Encompass Medical Group recently installed a CARESTREAM Vue PACS to serve its eight locations in the greater Kansas City area. Susan Stidham, Director of Ancillary Services at Encompass Medical Group shares her thoughts on PACS support for breast imaging modalities and how it impacted their PACS selection in the guest blog post below.
Our medical group has six imaging centers (located within our 8 primary care physician offices) and conducts 12,000 screening and diagnostic mammography exams a year—about one-fifth of our total workflow. When our staff evaluated suppliers for a new PACS, we were shocked to discover how hard it is to find a PACS that supports an efficient mammography workflow.
Some PACS do not support all breast imaging modalities. Demonstrations revealed that others could not display breast exams in full resolution or required five minutes or more to display each exam. The good news is that we found a PACS platform that delivers all the mammography reading capabilities we need:
- Reading of all breast imaging modalities, including FFDM, CR, MR and general and vascular ultrasound
- Rapid delivery of full-resolution images to ensure a streamlined reading workflow
- Specialized mammography reading features and tools including a prelabeled keypad with the most commonly used commands (save, finish exam, mark as read, go to next workflow, turn CAD on/off, etc.) and a programmable mouse. These features facilitate fast, efficient reading for on-site and off-site radiologists.
Our new PACS–CARESTREAM Vue PACS–met our budget requirements and is flexible and scalable enough to serve us for many years. If your staff doesn’t initially find a PACS that meets 
all your mammography needs, keep looking. The PACS of your dreams is out there—you just have to find it.
Does your current PACS address your mammography workflow?
If you are replacing your PACS, have you had a difficult time finding a new PACS that streamlines mammography reading?
