Electronic teaching files: seven-year experience using a commercial picture archiving and communication system

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging Informatics
• Radiology Education Technology

Background:

• Digital imaging teaching files are crucial for medical education and research.
• Picture Archival and Communication Systems (PACS) offer potential for improved teaching file management.
• Existing PACS implementations often fall short of realizing this potential due to various limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and discuss the limitations of current PACS in supporting teaching file creation, archival, and access.
• To propose necessary improvements for PACS vendors to enhance the utility of teaching files.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of limitations encountered in a specific institutional PACS.
• Review of functionalities related to teaching file creation, folder management, image searching, and data export.
• Identification of user-access impediments and data security concerns.

Main Results:

• Current PACS tools hinder teaching file creation and access, reducing their use in conferences, daily teaching, and research.
• Restricted folder creation privileges, cumbersome multi-step processes for saving images, and inadequate search functionalities are significant issues.
• Lack of easy mechanisms for exporting data to removable media and stripping patient information further limits usability.

Conclusions:

• PACS vendors must develop more sophisticated, user-friendly tools for creating and annotating teaching files in standard formats (e.g., RSNA MIRC).
• Enhanced user privileges for file creation with audit trails, integrated libraries of teaching cases, and standard lexicons are essential.
• Improved data export capabilities with robust security are critical for facilitating image sharing for teaching, research, and clinical purposes.