PACS and Digital Medicine: Essential Principles and Modern Practice

To improve efficiency and reduce administrative costs, healthcare providers, insurance companies, and governments are increasingly using integrated electronic health record (EHR) and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) to manage patients’ medical information. Reflecting the latest applications of PACS technology, PACS and Digital Medicine: Essential Principles and Modern Practice discusses the essential principles of PACS, EHR, and related technological advancements as well as practical issues concerning the implementation, operation, and maintenance of PACS and EHR systems.

The book focuses on various components of PACS that use state-of-the-art technologies. The authors first present topics to consider prior to implementation, including design principles for PACS components and theory. They also cover post-installation quality control; security and privacy policies; maintenance, including upgrade/integration with other information systems; and governing standards. Each chapter includes an introduction to basic concepts and principles relevant to the topics, before exploring challenges that PACS users may encounter in daily work. Discussions are supplemented with more than 130 illustrations, along with case studies of implementation in two organizations.

A useful guide and broad overview of the field, this book presents key principles and practical steps for PACS and EHR implementations and maintenance. Although the technology and standards of healthcare IT will evolve over time, the theory and practical advice found in this text will remain pertinent in the future.

Yu Liu, Ph.D., DABR, is a senior imaging physicist certified by the American Board of Radiology. He works in the radiology department at St. Luke’s Medical Center of Aurora Healthcare in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since 1997, he has been involved in PACS implementation and operation. He earned his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Duke University.

Jihong Wang, Ph.D., DABR, is an associate professor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He implemented the first major PACS system for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas while he was a faculty member there from 1996–2004. He earned his Ph.D. in medical physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.