The north-west region community PACS study.

A recent study in the West Surrey Health Authority demonstrated substantial advantages from viewing a picture archiving and communication system (PACS) as a whole-community asset, that is, a community PACS (CPACS). To test how this concept could be translated to other situations, the present study extrapolated the CPACS concept to the north-west healthcare region of the UK (population around seven million). A CPACS is a network covering multiple hospitals and community organizations, with a single archive and a broadband network to support it. A CPACS would provide a much better service to patients. It would bring financial economies of scale of up to 17%. It could provide the big modernization idea which brings clinicians, managers and technologists together. On the other hand, it could well be too big to manage.