Operating an open source PACS

Avram Adam is Network/Systems Administrator at Arizona State Radiology group, which operates 13 locations and provides radiology services to four hospitals in the Tucson area. Adam has been working in PACS for radiology for about two years and before that worked with the City of Tucson and at a credit union primarily in systems administrator and network administrator roles. As chief technology officer as well the HIPAA security officer for Arizona State Radiology he manages all the networking systems, which handle about a half a million studies a year.

Q. What prompted you to seek open source PACS solutions?

Because current offerings don’t have all of the functionality we are looking for.

DHS warns of Citrix vulnerability under attack

Credit Citrix blog

PARCA eNews – Jan. 18, 2020 – The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity unit has issued an alert about a weakness in the Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Ctirx Gateway web server applications that are experiencing active attacks.

Public comment sought on ONC 5-year plan

PARCA eNews – Jan. 15, 2020 – The draft 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan (plan) was posted Jan. 15 by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), for public comment.

The plan was developed in collaboration with over 25 federal organizations and is intended to guide federal health information technology (IT) activities over the course of the year.

MAZE malware adds blackmail element to ransom demand

PARCA eNews – Jan. 8, 2020 – The FBI issued an advisory calling for private organizations to be vigilant to combat the Maze ransomware attacks that started last November.

Dubbed MAZE, the ransomware uses multiple methods for intrusion, including creation of malicious look-alike cryptocurrency and spam campaigns impersonating government agencies.

The view for 2020: AHIMA continues to push for patient safety in 2020

PARCA eNews _ Jan. 2, 2020 – Despite the setback to lifting the decades old ban on development of a universal patient identifier last September, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) vows to continue to push forward on patient safety by making 2020 the year of Patient Matching.

Mary Butler outlined AHIMA’s goals for 2020 in an article on the organization’s website, stating that, "AHIMA has never waited for Congress to start advocating for better ways to improve patient safety, so the association is ready to make 2020 “The Year of Patient Matching” regardless of whether the Senate votes to remove the ban on a UPI." Ms Butler wrote."