This exhibit will identify and develop a hierarchy of 32 PACS selection criteria and organize them into five main dimensions, as well as subdimensions, said presenter Dr. Vivek Joshi of the University of Miami. PACS administrators were surveyed to identify the relative weights, or importance, of these dimensions.
System continuity and functionality were assigned the highest weighing (0.37) of the five main dimensions, followed by system performance and architecture (0.30), interface for workflow management (0.16), interface for image manipulation (0.11), and display quality (0.06).
The top subdimensions were security, backup, and downtime prevention; tools for continuous performance monitoring; and support for multispecialty images. Cardiology images were rated most important among nonradiology images.
"In other interesting findings, PACS with open standards were preferred by a margin of two to one over proprietary systems," Joshi said. "Third-party voice transcription also was preferred two to one over automated transcription, suggesting weaknesses in the automated transcription software in use."
