<title>Strategy of DIN-PACS benchmark testing</title>

Abstract

The Digital Imaging Network -- Picture Archive and Communication System (DIN-PACS) procurement is the Department of Defense's (DoD) effort to bring military medical treatment facilities into the twenty-first century with nearly filmless digital radiology departments. The DIN-PACS procurement is unique from most of the previous PACS acquisitions in that the Request for Proposals (RFP) required extensive benchmark testing prior to contract award. The strategy for benchmark testing was a reflection of the DoD's previous PACS and teleradiology experiences. The DIN-PACS Technical Evaluation Panel (TEP) consisted of DoD and civilian radiology professionals with unique clinical and technical PACS expertise. The TEP considered nine items, key functional requirements to the DIN-PACS acquisition: (1) DICOM Conformance, (2) System Storage and Archive, (3) Workstation Performance, (4) Network Performance, (5) Radiology Information System (RIS) functionality, (6) Hospital Information System (HIS)/RIS Interface, (7) Teleradiology, (8) Quality Control, and (9) System Reliability. The development of a benchmark test to properly evaluate these key requirements would require the TEP to make technical, operational, and functional decisions that had not been part of a previous PACS acquisition. Developing test procedures and scenarios that simulated inputs from radiology modalities and outputs to soft copy workstations, film processors, and film printers would be a major undertaking. The goals of the TEP were to fairly assess each vendor's proposed system and to provide an accurate evaluation of each system's capabilities to the source selection authority, so the DoD could purchase a PACS that met the requirements in the RFP.