Integrating PACS with Digital Mammography was Focus of Presentation at NCBC Meeting

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Integrating digital mammography with PACS proved far better than reading mammograms on mammo-only specialty workstations. That was the conclusion reported by a Pennsylvania hospital, in a poster presentation at the recent National Consortium of Breast Centers’ (NCBC) conference.

The presentation was by Peggy Wright, Supervisor of Women’s Imaging at Butler Health System, in Butler, Penn. She reported on using Butler’s Unity™ RIS/PACS from DR Systems to integrate digital mammography and PACS.

Butler concluded that integrating digital mammography with a mammography-oriented PACS helped the hospital avoid a costly space remodel. It also made reading, results reporting, and billing more efficient and provided better service to referring physicians.

“Not having to spend the capital for a space remodel was a key for us,” said Wright. “Even so, the advantages of integrating our digital mammography equipment with our PACS would probably have led us to that solution even without the space issue. Integrating digital mammography with the DR Systems PACS made it possible for us to reap the clinical and capacity-enhancing advantages of digital mammography, without a loss of efficiency and productivity.”

An imaging facility has two options for implementing full-field digital mammography (FFDM). It can integrate FFDM with its PACS so that all digital imaging modalities are read on the facility’s existing PACS workstation. Or it can have digital mammograms read on special mammography reading stations and mini-PACS acquired from an FFDM vendor.

source: Business Wire