Christopher D. Meenan MS, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Christopher Toland, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Max Jeffrey Warnock, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Paul G. Nagy PhD, Abstract Co-Author: Research grant, Diana Associates

Many organizations struggle with determining appropriate staffing requirements for new or existing Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS). Factors such as uptime requirements, support coverage and geographic distribution can all affect the level of staffing required for proper delivery of support. Striking an appropriate balance could mean the difference between a revolving door of burned out PACS support or a well-tuned team of knowledge workers that can continue to advance your systems and give great service to your customers

We used an open source issue tracking tool(Radtracker)to track the amount of effort that was required to support different PACS and other radiology IT systems in an academic medical center environment as well as a community based setting. We surveyed our customers using an open source survey tool (phpESP) and measured customer satisfaction in 2005 and in 2006.

We found that for an academic medical center environment with a combined study volume of approximately 500,000 studies/year that a PACS team with 5 FTE’s could provide 24x7x365 service with positive customer results. We found that for an established PACS system in a community hospital (~ 70,000 studies/year), adequate support could be provided by 0.5 FTE when after hours coverage was provided by the combined team. We increased the number of customers who were either satisfied or very satisfied with Radiology IT support from 86% in 2005 to 93.4% in 2006. We also reduced the PACS administrator turnover rate from 100% in 2005 to 20% in 2006.

Team sizing for PACS support is critical to the success of your PACS. By measuring support effort through the number and types of issues submitted by customers, managers can provide their organizations with appropriately sized teams that provide real value to their organizations and provide excellent service to their clinical customers. We found that by increasing the size of our team, we not only reduced the turn-over rate for PACS administrators but also increased customer satisfaction

An adequately sized team is essential to ensure the availability and performance of mission critical clinical applications such as PACS.

Meenan, C, Toland, C, Warnock, M, Nagy, P, Effort Reporting on PACS Support: Whats In Your SLA?.  Radiological Society of North America 2007 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, November 25 - November 30, 2007 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2007/5016229.html