HealthManagement, IT Volume 3 / Issue 1

And Sharing Between Hospital Trust
Author

Robert Hammond, Mary Barber

/NHS Connceting Health, UK


By December 2007 all hospital trusts in England were using the digital imaging technology known as Picture Archiving & Communication Systems (PACS). This was as the result of a national roll-out encompassing 127 separate hospital trusts over a three year period.

 

Now, PACS is enabling clinicians to view diagnostic images at multiple locations within their hospital trusts,

leading to speedier and more accurate diagnoses and treatment.

 

The national PACS programme – a collaborative effort between a central programme team at NHS Connecting for Health, strategic health authorities, hospital trusts, professional bodies, IT service providers and other stakeholders – is now working on ways to improve the sharing of images (and reports) across hospital trusts so that even more benefits can be realised.

 

The programme is taking a creative, pragmatic and cost conscious approach, meeting the large majority of clinicians' image sharing requirements by supporting the adoption of solutions such as web view and image routing technology that are available now.

 

«« Healthcare IT Providers Need To Do More To Solicit User Feedback