As a PACS SA professional, it is
critical to keep up with new developments to make sure that you can support the
intricacies and ever widening range of clinical specialties and technologies of
these systems. Let’s look at some of the major changes in technology and their scope
and how they impact the required competencies needed to support these.
2.
Familiarity with HL7 order structure to perform
the DICOM mapping correctly.
3.
Implementing basic security measures and creating
tools for data mining and analyzing audit trails.
4.
A SA needs to know how to use the most common
tools such as Crystal reporting and even basic SQL commands to perform custom
queries of databases.
5.
Familiarity with the EMR, and with mobile
applications to support the remote image access.
6.
Evaluate the specifications of the HIE’s and
match those with the ones of his or her PACS system.
8.
Implementing a “Deconstructed PACS, requiring a
SA to have troubleshooting skills, and know how to evaluate log files, use
DICOM sniffers and validation tools.
9.
Know how to look at HL7 messages and interpret
them to allow for testing, integration and troubleshooting.
10.
Last but not least, the SA becomes, not only a
mentor, but also trainer and second level support, otherwise it becomes unmanageable.
This requires very good teaching and training skills.
As
a healthcare imaging and IT professional it is important to stay up-to-date,
and there are plenty of learning opportunities to do this, so there is no
excuse for a lack of knowledge and/or skills to meet the increasing demands of
this exciting field. For a more detailed breakdown and about the why and how of
these skills, you can access the complete white paper from OTPedia, our healthcare IT web resource here.