Carol Lynn Joseph RN, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Mac Jackson BS, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Donald Stapleton BS, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Based upon institutional recommendations, and the rate of archived image utilization older than 5 years, long-term storage should not exceed 5 years unless the State specifically mandates longer retention or if there are pending legal issues. This recommendation excludes mammography or pediatric studies.

Seven years. That is the response most often heard when asking healthcare clinicians or administrators how long digital images need to be retained. Some will even venture that they should never be destroyed. Although there are plenty of regulatory and legal mandates around written medical records retention there are relatively few regarding the retention of imaging studies. The primary objective of this research was to assist Ascension Health with empirically determining an optimal age for recommend purging or sending studies to a deeper archive to reduce cost. This study evaluates the age of prior studies actually retrieved from a DICOM archive for comparison.

De-identified data was obtained from two acute care hospitals which used the AMICAS PACS image archiving solution. The primary criteria for choosing the data from these two facilities was that they did not utilize automated pre-fetch rules to pull up prior images for comparison to the newly acquired one. The data used is comprised of 362,429 total studies obtained during the time frame of November 1, 2008 through April 30, 2009 (6 months). The total count reflects 100% of the current studies performed during this time period as well as the oldest prior used for comparison. The data is inclusive of adult and pediatric studies from all modalities except mammography.  

Relevant Federal and State regulations, in the states where Ascension Health operates, were complied and reviewed. Of the fifteen States which have Ascension Health acute care facilities, 7 have specific x-ray image retention requirements. At the federal level, documentation of care requirements are specified but not image retention, were also in the 5 year time frame. Evaluation of the data produced the following results.The rate of oldest prior study retrieval was 9.3% at >90 days, 4.8% at > 1year, 1.3% at >3 years, and 0.1% at >5 years.   

Joseph, C, Jackson, M, Stapleton, D, Evaluation of the Utilization and Retention of Radiological Studies.  Radiological Society of North America 2010 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, November 28 - December 3, 2010 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2010/9002819.html