PACS Certifications: The way to standardize the industry

By Hussein Al-Sayiegh

PACS Club of Kuwait - Q8PACS

Little History..

PACS Admin start

PACS has started two decades ago to overcome many difficulties with film archiving issues driven by legal obligations. Since that time, choosing a PACS admin was a challenge. The appointment of PACS admin from radiography domain was a common practice. Just like appointing a dark room technician, PACS admin was chosen among other radiographers. They often chose a computer skilled, and an active young person to be able to run around.

PACS Admin and IT personnel

Later, when PACS started growing and the no. of modalities connected became larger, imaging departments started hiring IT technical support people to take care of IT issues. The IT person will be side-to-side to a clinical PACS admin who plays classical role like merging patients, searching for ray images and so on.

PACS Admin Outsourcing

Some other institutes, decided to outsource this position to a PACS vendor. This was to overcome delay caused by late response to technical problem. They did this by hiring resident PACS admin from vendor’s side to assure fast response to technical difficulties.

Need for PACS certification

1. Indefinite Qualifications and job duties.

Until today most hospitals and imaging centers lack information about qualifications and technical background of their future PACS admin. They probably don’t even know the full job description of the PACS admin which is often confused with the job of the vendor’s PACS engineer.

2. Standardizing Qualifications

One more reason to push for PACS certifications is to standardize this job. Thus, when hospitals start looking for a PACS admin they will look for any person with certain qualifications. However, if you cannot find a standard qualification then it will be too hard to find some one with all needed qualifications and experience.

With implementation of PACS certifications people looking to work in PACS will know their career direction and areas where they need to develop themselves in.

Certifying Organizations

For that reason, some organizations concerned with medical imaging started to pursue a bundle of certifications to standardize the job and to help in evaluating qualifications of the PACS professional.

A. PACS Administrators Registry and Certification Association (PARCA)

http://www.pacsadmin.org/

* PARCA

1. Certified PACS Associate (CPAS) Clinical
2. Certified PACS Associate (CPAS) Technical
3. Certified PACS Interface Analyst (CPIA)
4. Certified PACS System Analyst (CPSA)
5. Certified PACS System Manager (CPSM)

B. The American Board of Imaging Informatics (ABII)

The Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM), previously SCAR.

http://www.scarnet.org/

http://www.abii.org/

* CIIP: Certified Imaging Informatics Professional (CIIP)

Diversion

If you are convinced that you should get certified, or your PACS admin should be certified. Then, another question comes, which of above certification programs which should adopt: PARCA or CIIP ?

My answer is, pick which ever is more convenient for your facility. CIIP offers one exam only while PARCA offers three levels on five exams. CIIP is affiliated with the American Registery of Radioloic Technologists (ARRT) while PARCA is not. PARCA certification exams can be done anywhere at any time on the internet while CIIP exam is done in selected testing centers in the US. PARCA is working on preparing PACS certifications for PACS engineers for the same reason of certifying the PACS administrators.

Currently, both certifications are concentrating on Radiology only. However, PARCA is working on including parts from Nuclear Medicine and Cardiology since two of PARCA’s board members are from those disciplines.

For further readings, read the following article written by Herman Oosterwiij president of OTech Imaing entitle as PACS Administrator Certification: CIIP or PARCA.

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