With the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) slowly winding down, Trusts are in the process of considering their options regarding their PACS environments. This means many trusts are deciding to extend their PACS contract to allow them more time todo this.
However, each day that goes by where the LSP contract continues, Trusts are still obliged to offload their data to the Central Data Store (CDS). Between today and contract cessation, this means there could be an additional 15 months’ worth of data uploaded to the CDS, added to what has already been “flushed”. These additional Terabytes of data may then further complicate the problems they already face in relation to data ownership and management.
So in answer to the question of whether extending your contract will help or hinder: by extending your contract, a Trust will have the breathing space to do the necessary planning they require to ensure their environment is fit for their needs. Yet, extending could also easily become a hindrance should Trusts not make provision for the better management of their data.
If your intention is to repatriate your PACS data and move to a Vender Neutral Archive, the more data you keep under your control now, will mean that less will need to be recovered from the CDS. Storing as much data locally by copying your local archives, PACS cache, and all newly acquired data to your own infrastructure, provides the foundation for your own VNA. It also provides a platform to test and implement data migration to a new PACS now or in the future, while continuing to provide full access to your priors using your existing PACS.
This will ultimately save considerable time, effort and money.
