Originally published on JS PACS, May 13, 2009.
The day of the vendor-provided workstation is coming to an end. For so long we have heard that we have to purchase our PACS workstations pre-built and pre-configured. Well, I think the time is upon us to take control of our workstations. Your organization can gain a lot by moving PACS workstation development in house. You can save money, standardize the workstation build, and use your organization’s own software, such as anti-virus and patch management.
I am currently in the process of building a Centricity 1000 workstation from scratch, and I want to say that it is not the mysterious process the vendors would have you believe. We simply purchased a license, obtained the software, and bought the recommended hardware. In fact, we purchased a workstation well over the minimum specifications, so we know we’ll get great performance out of it.
The most arduous part of building this workstation so far consisted of two issues. The first was getting XP installed on the HP workstation (see the article on installing Windows XP on the HP xw series), and the other was getting the license. The license acquisition wasn’t difficult; it just took some time to get an account on the GE licensing system and register the Centricity serial number I had received in order to generate the license.
With the workstation up and running and the license file in hand, it was rather trivial to install the cardiology software. I have it all installed and configured, but I haven’t given it the true test of sending DICOM images to the workstation. I am not that worried about that portion of the testing, however, because from this point it is just a matter of tweaking settings.
The most important aspect of this process for me was a reaffirmation that an organization really can be successful building its own workstations, and that software-only solutions can be a viable part of the strategy for maintaining workstations and keeping them refreshed. The biggest advantages to purchasing, building, and maintaining your own workstations are that you can shop for the best prices, standardize your hardware, and align the software with your organization’s overall strategy (virus protection and so on).