An evaluation of the financial impacts of optical disk storage for digital radiography

While the digitization of radiographic patient information and the use of picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) have become a subject of increased interest and controversy, discussion of the methodology for archiving this information is not common. Optical disks have been proposed as one solution to the archival problem which faces most large radiology departments as the transition to digitization occurs. An in-depth financial analysis of the costs incurred by both traditional film archival and optical disk archival provides sufficient information to emphatically state that over a seven-year period, optical disk archival is more cost efficient than traditional radiographic film archival for radiology facilities with workloads greater than 25,000 procedures. For simplification purposes, however, only those cost directly associated with image archival were considered; all other factors relating to PACs, such as personnel costs and hardware required for image review and transfer, were ignored.