ASP archiving solution of regional HUSpacs

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Information Technology in Healthcare
• Medical Imaging Archiving

Background:

• The Application Service Provider (ASP) model is established in various industries but less explored for healthcare archiving.
• The Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) operates a large regional Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) serving 1.4 million citizens across 21 hospitals.
• Efficient and cost-effective long-term and backup archiving solutions are crucial for large-scale PACS implementations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To define specifications for an ASP archiving service tailored for a regional PACS.
• To compare the costs of different archiving solutions: in-house PACS, regional ASP, and hospital-based ASP.
• To evaluate the feasibility and economic benefits of an ASP model for HUS PACS archiving.

Main Methods:

• Defined technical and service specifications for a regional ASP archiving solution.
• Gathered cost data for archiving options through unofficial requests for proposals.
• Compared cost-effectiveness of in-house, hospital-based ASP, and regional ASP archiving models.

Main Results:

• The large scale of the HUS PACS installation supports a cost-effective regional ASP archiving strategy.
• Regional ASP archiving for HUS PACS was found to be four to five times more economical than hospital-based ASP archiving.
• The study identified a viable and economically advantageous ASP solution for large regional PACS.

Conclusions:

• A regional ASP model presents a highly cost-effective solution for long-term and backup archiving of large-scale PACS.
• The economies of scale in regional healthcare systems can be leveraged for significant cost savings through ASP archiving.
• The ASP model offers a scalable and efficient approach to managing medical imaging archives in extensive healthcare networks.