The next chapter gives a detailed description of Picture Archiving and Communication
Systems (PACS), systems that electronically process, store, distribute, and retrieve digital
medical images in a portion of, or throughout, a health care enterprise. PACS epitomizes
the integration of medical, computer, and communication technologies with its requirements
for large amounts of storage, sophisticated databases, large-bandwidth, high-speed
networks, computational power at the desktop, ease of use, for a variety of people, and
specialized medical application software. The author notes how PACS can improve the
imaging department workflow compared to film-based technologies and emphasizes that
the practical implementation of PACS requires a high degree of integration with the
Radiology Information System (RIS) and/or the Hospital Information System (HIS) for
scheduling, workload management, and radiology reports. As PACS reduces film use,
film processing, and film storage costs, as well as the number of lost films and retakes, it
continues to develop, facilitated by the growth of high-bandwidth intranets