Once the technical difficulties of PACS have been solved and some PACS are running on clinical operation, the main obstacles for its implementation will be the costs. Even though PACS is still under development, it is clear that the equipment for
PACS
well be more expensive than the equipment used in the conventional film system. In this paper, two PACS system models were analyzed for a newly built of one thousand inpatients beds. One was a large-scale hospital-wide filmless PACS called as a
'Full
PACS' and another one was a smaller-scale PACS called a 'Partial PACS' for some clinical departments. Information economics tools which expand cost with value was used to analyze the economic feasibility of PACS.
To assist the analysis, financial simulation model was developed using simulation package, called IFPS (Interactive Financial Planning System). The results indicated that the Full PACS showed net benefit but the Partial PACS did not. The reason
was
that
the Partial PACS might be a redundant tool because films should be produced for the departments without PACS. Sensitivity analysis reavealed that the costs of equipments, cost of PACS, savings on personnel and film usage were important factors
for
determining the cost of PACS compared with the film-based system. Newly built large-scale hospitals need to consider the installation of large-scale hospitalwide PACSs from the opening of hospitals. This paper may provide a guideline for the
future
technical assessments of PACS even though this paper has limitations on various assumptions. The in diagnostic accuracy and timely diagnosis. Financial and clinical impacts should improvements in diagnostic accuracy and timely diagnosis.
Financial
and
clinical impacts should be integrated to provide information about how PACS expenditures will affect patients, radiology departments, hospitals, and national research and development objectives.
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