Hospital puts the brakes on integrating cardiac PACS

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston has decided not to mesh its cardiac PACS and enterprise/radiology PACS, at least for the time being. The main reason is cost, according to Georgann Bruski, director of invasive cardiology.

Vendor and product maturity, as well as campus politics, also played a role in the decision, as cardiology actually competes with radiology at Beth Israel.

Additionally, integration of the cardio and radiology PACS would be problematic because the two systems' patient record identifiers are inconsistent.