Saving and costs of a Picture Archiving and Communication System in the Utrecht University Hospital

The evaluation of the Dutch PACS project comprises amongst other studies a comparison of the direct financial costs of the present conventional system and the PACSystem. This paper shows that the invest-ment costs of a PACSystem are presently substantially higher than of the present system. These higher investment costs will not be compensated for by savings in the area of materials used, floor space needed, and personnel employed. The only cost effective compensation can be found in a shortening of the length of patient stay in the hospital. Preliminary results of the ongoing experiment suggest that compensation is achieved by an average decrease of one third day. Conditions under which a PACSystem can be more cost effective are being discussed