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One of the goals of the Dutch PACS-project (a collaborative effort of the Utrecht University Hospital (UUH), Philips Medical Systems and BAZIS Central Development and Support Group Hospital Information Systems) is to perform a clinical evaluation and equipment testing at the UUH. In earlier publications a setup for this clinical evaluation is presented. A target ward, a subdivision of the department of Internal Medicine (IM) with a total number of 15 beds, is selected to be treated fully digital. Two other wards, similar to the target ward, were not digitally treated and served as control group. To exploit the efficiency potential of PACS, a comparison will be made between current procedures and PACS procedures. From February 1st until June 1st 1988, a detailed timing and logistic study of examinations and folder tracking has been carried out for all patients of the 3 wards of Internal Medicine, mentioned above. The first part of the study regarding the conventional distribution process is now completed. For this purpose time-registration forms were added to the patients application-forms for radiological examinations. These forms were required to be filled in by all personnel involved (receptionist, archive, technologist, radiologist, etc.). A total number of 500 usable time-registration forms were gathered. One of the results, indicated that the mean time interval for examinations to cover the total conventional distribu-tion process comes to 53.9 hours. An analysis of the number of disturbances in the conventional distribution process indicated that in 24.1 % of all examinations, some exponent was lacking (missing, loaned, delayed, etc.). These disturbances are analyzed in relation to time-intervals. Data were analyzed statistically by means of the SPSS statistical package. This paper describes and explains in detail: - frequencies and means of the total distribution time and different parts of the current distribution process - total number of disturbances in the current distribution process - disturbances analyzed in relation to time intervals The three wards were statistically not significantly different, so they can be compared with each other. This analysis shows clearly the possibilities for efficiency of the PACS distribution process and the consequences of this innovation for the organization and organizational communication.
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