Evaluating PACS Success: A Multidimensional Model

A picture archiving and communications system (PACS) is an integrated workflow system for managing images and related data which is designed to streamline operations throughout the whole patient care delivery process. PACS has become a mature technology over the past few years and has been widely implemented in several developed countries. Evaluation of PACS success is a major challenge to healthcare organizations. A review of previous PACS research suggests a fragmented and focused evaluation approach, thus offering limited discussion of comprehensive views of PACS success or systematic and practical guidance to its evaluations. Based on two prevalent information systems success models, this paper proposes and describes an integrated framework for evaluating PACS success in hospital settings. It details the validation process of the proposed model and its related measurement instrument at a large tertiary-care teaching hospital in Canada. Future research directions that extend the proposed research model are highlighted.