PACS

Merrimack Valley MRI has made an important step in improving the efficiency of its operation through installation of an advanced “PACS” (“Patient Archiving and Communication System”). This move into digital imaging and retrieval has had a number of important benefits:

• Rapid transmission of electronic images to the radiologists for review and interpretation, leading to faster turnaround time for reports to referring physicians;
• The ability to send digital images and reports directly to referring physicians’ PC desktops via the internet, once again improving turnaround time for reports and timely review of results with patients, leading to improved patient management;
• PACS has allowed us to become a virtually “film-less” operation;
• The PACS is fully integrated with the patient scheduling and registration system.

Since our implementation of PACS, we have installed the PACS viewing software on the PC’s of numerous area physicians. Access to images and reports is password protected. For more information on access to digital images and reports for your patients, please call our Administrator at (978) 682-1906.

Following completion of the MRI exam, each patient is given a CD that contains all of the images from the MRI study. These images on the CD can be examined on the referring physician’s desktop PC.

Dr. James R. Johnston, Merrimack Valley MRI Medical Director, reading an MRI study at one of the PACS consoles.