PACS managers up for education

Eight out of ten PACS managers would be willing to undergo official education for their role if it was made available, a survey discovered.

Wide variations in the role undertaken by PACS managers, and a lack of education specific to PACS, were also revealed in the survey conducted by Rodnick Vassallo of Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, during his masters degree studies.

Vassallo sent the survey to 400 UK PACS managers as part of an analysis of the PACS profession.

“In the UK there is a lack of standardisation and no regulation or specific educational programmes,” he told a UKRC session focused on education in health informatics last month.

He identified some national resources for PACS managers, including the UK Imaging Informatics Group, the British Computer Society health branch and the UK Council for Health Informatics Professionals.

However, the UK currently lacks the equivalent of the US Imaging Informatics Professional (IIP) Certificate awarded by the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine.

Alexander Peck, information systems manager at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, also found huge variations in the role undertaken by PACS managers when he analysed 25 job descriptions.

The commonest skill demanded of post holders was project management up to Prince 2 foundation level, with 18 job descriptions mandating the qualification and two listing it as desirable.

Professional registration as a radiographer was demanded in 14 job descriptions and seen as desirable in four.

Eight employers said management qualifications were essential and 13 listed them as being desirable. Higher qualifications were demanded by 11 and desired by nine.

Peck observed that the job descriptions seemed to be getting longer and longer; but identified five key facets of PACS management.  

There were: IT including software, hardware and networks; clinical skills; legal and compliance knowledge; PR and an ability to ‘sell’ the system to users; and analytical expertise to handle statistics, Department of Health returns, and similar demands.

Di Millen, lead for informatics capability and development at NHS England, said that the PACS manager’s role was not included currently on the national health informatics career framework.

However, the framework identifies 120 roles and 100 job descriptions are available to help employers.

She outlined some of the resources available which could support the development of health informatics in imaging including the eICE initiative – Embedding Informatics in Clinical Education – and two new masters programmes in clinical bioinformatics.