The Many Roles of a PACS Administrator
November 15th, 2006 by Jon Mertz
(6 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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PACS Administrators play a key role in radiology practices and enhancing radiology workflow. Although the PACS title has been around for only ten years, some think that the title does not accurately reflect what they do today. The PACS administrator role could be broken into many parts, including:
- IT manager
- Application manager
- Project manager
- Radiology workflow efficiency expert
- Diplomat
- Communications systems expert
- Quality assurance
- Standards expert (e.g., DICOM, HL7, etc.)
An interesting article entitled Five Steps to Finding the Perfect PACS Administrators outlines some of the responsibilities and considerations in finding the perfect person to fill this role. The Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) is developing a PACS certification program, but SIIM is not using that term. Instead, they will be certified as an imaging informatics professional.
Just as technology impacting an imaging center has changed so has the role of the PACS administrator. The one element that seems clear is that they play an essential role in successful radiology practices … no matter what the title.
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I believe in the role but I’m not sure I agree with the acronym PACS.
When did you last hear an application based IT system have to define itself as a communication system? That’s inherent in the fact that it is information technology. It feels illogical to make a big deal out of that, reflects challenges largely in the past and aspires to monolithic systems. I try and use the terms “DICOM Storage”, “DICOM viewer” and “Radiology Writer” to describe the constituent parts and apply as appropriate. Processes are being reengineered such that these elements are being reused in ways the technologists hadn’t imagined and the PACS term’s days are numbered.
There’s a lot of inertia in the acronym by virtue of the intellectual capital invested in it, so I don’t expect a change any time soon.
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