Cost justification of filmless PACS and national policy
Jae Hoon Lim · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2002
The expense of installing PACS is high so most Korean hospitals cannot afford to purchase the system easily. We can justify the cost of PACS by considering the visible and invisible benefits. As a visible benefit we can save the cost of films and equipments for film processing. Invisible benefits of PACS is the cost of film handling. Generally, doctors spend some 25 minutes in handling X-ray films everyday and they spend 10 days (84 hours) throughout a year. Radiology technicians, nurses, orderlies and clerks also handle films and the total salary for handling films by doctors and paramedics will be considerable. Considering the visible and invisible benefits, cost of PACS is justified and PACS can be installed in every hospital, whatever their size. The Korean Society of PACS tried to make reimbursement of the cost of PACS and persuaded the government officers and eventually the Ministry of Health and Welfare decided to reimburse the use of PACS in hospitals. Based on the money reimbursed, general hospitals or university hospitals will earn enough money to purchase a PACS in 3 - 5 years. After the Korean government started to reimburse the cost of PACS, many hospitals wanted to install PACS and the number of hospitals installing PACS is soaring.