Carol Lynn Joseph RN, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

   The use of rules based deletion can effectively facilitate the removal of aged images from a DICOM archive. Running rules based deletion enables an archive to be maintained at nearly zero growth. These two actions will significantly reduce the cost of future storage expansion. Sites located in States with complex rules may not be able to enable deletion until vendor solutions mature and a way found to use data not typically in a PACS archive.

   Dramatically reducing cost of DICOM image storage is music to an Administrators ears. New imaging studies that are added to a DICOM archive create a cumulative expansion of the server storage size. This produces a continued need to purchase more storage to accommodate the increasing file size.     Historically administrators had the ability to delete individual DICOM studies on a single study basis, but the option to delete multiple studies based on rules was not readily available. Managing PACS storage growth, and the associated cost, can be achieved by utilizing rules based deletion. Today there are tools are available to perform rules based deletion but there is little published information on process, outcomes and limitations. The discussion focus will be on the successful outcome and limitations identified when implementing rules based deletion.  

   Our Health System, located in 23 States and the District of Columbia, has a petabyte of DICOM images stored enterprise wide and an annual growth rate of 230 TB. We identified the vendors that had rules based deletion and selected to work with one that covered the largest amount of images stored. After testing was completed, rules based deletion was used to remove images. The deletion was 100% accurate and opened storage space. Testing also demonstrated the newly opened space can be reused.  

   Performing deletions is dependent the age of studies on the archive and on local regulatory requirements. Many State image retention rules are basic, but others have complex rules that require retention based upon time elapse since the last visit. Such information is not contained in a PACS study, thus a rule cannot be built without adding custom data to the image archive

Joseph, C, DICOM Image Lifecycle Management – Reducing Cost by Applying Rules Based Deletion.  Radiological Society of North America 2013 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, December 1 - December 6, 2013 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2013/13013313.html