SUMMARY
This 408-page report on the outlook for PACS is the latest in a series of four reports, begun in 1991 and issued at approximately three-year intervals by the Concord Consulting Group. Each report, including the latest, has been based on the same methodology: focus groups of leaders in the fields of PACS and information technology; mail surveys of both administrators and radiologists – potential PACS customers –-- in hospitals and imaging centers; descriptions of participants in the arena, summarized in a series of vendor profiles; and a review of developments with industry sources.
Like the former report, the current report is written for participants in the PACS industry, describing the forces at work that promote or impede adoption of PACS. It is the result of more than a year’s work directed by Dr. Philip Drew and carried out by a team from CCG who are familiar with PACS and its multiple ramifications.
In the three years since the last report was issued, a good deal has happened. Although managed care is the subject of loud complaints, there is no consensus for significant change, and managed care’s imperative to reduce costs of providing medical care remains firmly in place. Medical imaging has assumed a pre-eminent role in diagnosis and follow-up for a wide range of conditions, with the result that demand for medical imaging procedures has never been higher. As more and more institutions adopt PACS, worry about the technical obstacles has receded. All these factors lend powerful stimulus to sales of PACS.
On the other hand, PACS are expensive, and convincing demonstrations that PACS actually save enough money to justify their costs is still elusive. It seemed for a time that the Internet might offer low-cost solutions, but this promise has not been realized to the extent anticipated by some. Part of the reason is that PACS require substantial investment in on-site equipment, so that the existence of the Internet does not necessarily save much money.
The report recognizes that PACS can no longer be treated as stand-alone systems but instead are part of the larger field of information technology. At the same time, PACS haves enough unique features, as well as a separate history of development, so that HIS vendors are unlikely to displace established PACS vendors. More likely, users of PACS will find it necessary to modify their systems for smooth data interchange among productssystems from unrelated vendors.
Using data from the survey of potential PACS customers, the report contains a year-by- year forecast of sales for PACS and PACS subsystems (like mini-PACS, teleradiology image distribution systems, and systems to bring images from remote sites). Despite the current economic downturn in the U.S. economy, PACS sales are expected to remain strong through the next five years, subject in the latter years of the decade to a declining rate of growth, attributed to falling prices and sales of small PACS to smaller institutions. The report concludes with a discussion of trends in the field, delineating for subscribers avenues where we believe opportunities lie and avenues that we judge to hold out false promises.
The fFour extensive appendices provide much of the raw data on which our conclusions are based. Two appendices detail results of the mail surveys. Another contains an edited transcript of the focus groups conducted for this study, and the last appendix contains profiles of more than 100 vendors of PACS, mini-PACS, and other PACS subsystems, as well as profiles of more than 200 other vendors of PACS-related products.
Additional detail is available in the form of a Table of Contents, List of Exhibits, and List of Vendors Profiled. A Subscription Agreement is also available to order the report, which is available immediately
Summary / Table of Contents / List of Exhibits / List of Vendors Profiled
Profile of Concord Consulting Group
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