Be sure to develop a policy regarding installation and maintenance of imaging devices and peripheral PACS equipment. Sometimes the line between organizational PC’s and medical imaging equipment can become blurred and questions can arise regarding who supports what. Consider anything attached to imaging equipment to be your domain and adapt the stance that no equipment related to PACS can be worked on without your knowledge. I am not suggesting that you keep your organizations technical services group from working on PC’s around imaging equipment but just have them verify with the PACS team any work that they are about to perform to ensure that it won’t impact workflow. Nobody wants to run dictatorship regarding PACS but having information pass through you will prevent issues happening in the imaging informatics flow of your organization without your knowledge.
Scenario: An oncology PC used for treatment planning was having some issues and the TS team inadvertently altered the IP address breaking it with regards to DICOM communication. It took a day for the IS team to figure that the IP address had to be reset to its original setting and because of that, an entire day of work in the oncology department was lost including the fact that some patients had to wait longer than normal since the department was down to one treatment planning device. Considering that this was a DICOM device, the PACS team was distressed to learn that the oncology department had been unnecessarily impacted for an entire day. The details as to what circumstances arose that required the modification of the device IP and how it was done without the knowledge of the PACS team are still being uncovered.
With an incident like this, it is clear that it is time to review the policies and procedures with all parties involved to ensure that the DICOM devices and medical imaging equipment of the organization must be worked by or with oversight from the PACS team.
Be sure your organization has policies and procedures in place regarding the management of PACS related equipment. Also be sure that the policy is communicated to the organization (clinical department managers, IS, administration etc.) as you never know where an issue with imagining informatics may surface. Whether it is a new imaging device, maintenance on existing devices or PC’s that interface with imaging devices, you need to know about it.
Let the JS PACS community know about your policies and procedures about management of your PACS assets and how you handle incidents like this by posting in the JS PACS Forum.
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