Digital archiving is one of those technologies that confounds healthcare decision-makers. It’s not because the choices are vast so much as that they just keep changing. Reel-to-reel tape and Trident removable drives are still fresh in many people’s memories, if not on vendor’s shelves.

People also know that picture archiving and communications equipment isn’t cheap to buy, nor to replace. Furthermore, it can be a difficult expense to justify.

“Unlike [imaging devices], PACS do not generate income,” says Antonio Garcia, imaging analyst for the market research firm Frost and Sullivan (San Jose, Calif.). “There is a great deal of hesitation to spend millions of dollars on systems whose economic viability is still tentative.”

Technology costs and obsolescence are the main reasons why archiving, for the majority of healthcare institutions, still equals film libraries. Smart storage vendors, however, have come to realize that customers want affordable, cross-platform performance that won’t be antiquated as soon as their check clears.

As system designers strive for standardization, imaging facilities are warming to the idea of replacing film vaults with digital management. U.S. Radiology Partners, a Dallas-based consulting firm, found in a recent survey that 61 percent of radiologists read 10,001 to 20,000 studies annually and that, while 63 percent of imaging centers do not currently have PACS, 35 percent plan to install one in the next 12 to 18 months. Frost and Sullivan’s research seems to concur: North American, Latin American and Asian PACS markets generated revenues of $757 million in 2001, a figure projected to hit $1.7 billion by 2008.

Please refer to the September 2002 issue for the complete story. For information on article reprints, contact Martin St. Denis