Association of the implementation of PACS with hospital revenue.

The purpose of this study is to assess the association of implementation of PACS with the inpatient and outpatient revenue of a general hospital. The authors analyzed the in- and outpatient revenue data of all general hospitals (212) in South Korea obtained from the Korean National Health Insurance Corporation (KNHIC) during the period from 1996 through 1999 using the mixed model for repeated measure data. The following variables were used in the analysis: status of picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) implementation, population size, state of competition, inhabitant's income, hospital location, hospital size, whether a tertiary hospital, whether public or private, the effect of year. The revenues from both in- and outpatient departments were significantly higher one year after the introduction of PACS while controlling for the confounding variables. Although the causality needs to be clarified, the implementation of PACS was correlated significantly to the increased amount of inpatient and outpatient revenue.