On the subject of work recently. I’m still loving the job down in Scottsdale so I’m not going to bitch about that. Instead I’m going to bitch about…. A article I read recently about hiring a good PACS application specalist.
Understand that it seems like PACS is the bastard step child of most hospitals. It’s this hugely important application that is run enterprise wide. And how many people typically support it? In Kingman it was yours truly and 1 GE Field Engineer… And the GE Field Engineer left 2 months after go live. So it was me and me alone for the four months between her leaving and my leaving. Of course PACS wasn’t the only thing that I supported but it took up a huge chunk of my time. Actually in retrospect things should have gone down diffrently in Kingman. But that is another diatrabe for another day.
At the current healthcare system? There are 5 of us (4 employees plus the GE Field Engineer). I still support other apps and PACS still takes up a huge chunk of my time. Other hospitals in the Phoenix area? Well of the other folks that I have met so far there is typically 1 or 2 people for the entire healthcare system down here. So a healthcare system may have 3 or 4 facilities (not nesscarily all of them full blown hospitals) that are taking care of PACS systems. These aren’t small healthcare systems either.
And when I say 1 or 2 people I mean 1 person full time and maybe someone part time to help out.
As far who controls a PACS system it seems to be split between x-ray departments and IT departments. A few places actually seem to have some sort of workable arraingment for sharing employees and resources (Kingman had real issues with this).
Getting back to the article.
So this article was put out in a publication aimed at Computer proffesionals in imaging. Both technical and clinical users. This list was presented in the form of a "Top 10" and number 8 was something to effect of:
"A good PACS administrator should be personalbe and able to communicate effectivly"
OK I know I’m not the greatest communicator in the world but I like to think I’m somewhat approachable. Granted somedays I’m about as approachable as a porcupine but still.
Well #8 goes on and the last line reads;
"Highly technical but sometimes socially inept IT administrators"
That last line in #8 is was really irks me. Yes I’ve met my fair share of IT folks that have real issues relating to people about things other then computers. But come on do we really need to be perpeuating this stereotype? I’ve also met people from other walks of life that had real issues relating to people. And in a couple of cases were actually worse then some of the IT folks I have run into in my time.
Really it’s that last line that has me bugged the most. I still consider myself a IT guy, though admitatly I have specalized in one particular type of application for a particular sector of IT.
It still pisses me off.