From the January/February 2013 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


Definitions of what a VNA is and what it should do vary, with some proponents saying it should be called something different entirely, such as “PACS neutral archive.” But a VNA by any other name would need to have the same key feature: communicating between disparate clinical systems to store and manage images as well as other documents and files.

In addition to image consolidation, VNA can also help facilities purge data they no longer need or safely store images that are still necessary.


“For example, pediatric data typically must be kept until the patient is in their mid- to late-20s, while adult data might only need to be kept for five, seven or 10 years,” says Greg Strowig, VP of client services at VNA vendor TeraMedica. “Our VNA has clinical intelligence to determine which studies are no longer needed and which must be retained longer.”

TeraMedica is one dedicated VNA vendor. Agfa and Merge are popular PACS players in the VNA market, according to a KLAS study.

PACS and RIS continue to blend
The traditional role of a RIS (radiology information system) is to perform administrative functions such as patient tracking, workflow management, result entry and billing. Not much has changed for RIS over the last few years.

“For the most part, the providers are used to it and it does the job it’s supposed to do,” says Nadim Daher, advanced medical technologies principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “However, some providers still today, which is almost unbelievable, haven’t succeeded in making their RIS work alongside their PACs. So replacement with PACS has led to replacement of their RIS.”

Today, more and more facilities use integrated PACS/RIS systems rather than standalone RIS. Vendors such as Viztek provide an image-centric RIS that brings studies to radiologists without the need for data entry, useful for facilities with smaller staffs.

“Studies are read based on how they’re performed instead of how they’re specifically ordered in a Medicare billing code, for example,” says Steve Deaton, director of business development for Viztek.

For larger facilities, RIS-driven workflows are common, as they allow radiologists to view a variety of information simultaneously rather than needing to switch workstations. RIS can also be integrated into the EMR to provide a fuller picture of the patient in question.

“We use RIS (EMR) driven workflow which for me has been a sea change from PACS driven workflow,” says radiologist Daic Channin of Guthrie Clinic in Pennsylvania. “The medical record and the RIS have so much information about the patient and their context that it only makes sense to drive the imaging workflow from that system.”

January/February 2013 Magazine

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