The PACS system stops working during the middle of the night. What is your immediate action?

The PACS system stops working during the middle of the night. What is your immediate action?

• A. Inform A&E that PACS is down but images can be viewed locally, so they will need to come to the department.
• B. If there is PACS support out of hours, contact them.
• C. Inform intensive units that they must wait for PACS to be restored.
• D. No one is to take a picture on screen this is a breach of the Data Protection Act.

Answer: (A)

When a PACS outage occurs, the priority is to preserve patient care by maintaining access to imaging through available local systems and quickly informing clinical teams so they can continue workflows. The immediate action is to tell A&E that the PACS is down but that images can be viewed locally, so they will need to come to the department to review them. This keeps urgent imaging and patient triage moving without waiting for the system to be restored, while you arrange for out-of-hours support or a return-to-service plan. Delaying care by telling units to wait or waiting for fix alone would compromise patient safety, and actions focused solely on data protection don’t address the immediate need to maintain clinical workflow during the outage.

When a PACS outage occurs, the priority is to preserve patient care by maintaining access to imaging through available local systems and quickly informing clinical teams so they can continue workflows. The immediate action is to tell A&E that the PACS is down but that images can be viewed locally, so they will need to come to the department to review them. This keeps urgent imaging and patient triage moving without waiting for the system to be restored, while you arrange for out-of-hours support or a return-to-service plan. Delaying care by telling units to wait or waiting for fix alone would compromise patient safety, and actions focused solely on data protection don’t address the immediate need to maintain clinical workflow during the outage.