PACS Administrator: Job Description, Education, And Salary

As the various job spheres are becoming more and more visible to us, the sphere of being a PACS administrator has gained the limelight in no time. This integration of the medical field with technology and the whereabouts of administration has mingled the best of all worlds and can be just the best job for you to seek.

Essentially, PACS stands for Picture Archiving and Communication System. Not long before, this task was secluded for a general technician. But with the increased growth in the medical sector, the role of a PACS administrator has expanded into being a full-fledged job as an IT Specialist. However, there are a lot of questions that might still bother you. So, read further to know what is a PACS administrator, and how to become a PACS administrator at all.

The role of a PACS administrator

PACS administrator has to undergo all the administration part for the medical facility that he/she is working with. So, you are in charge of handling all the PACS system and essentially target PACS administration as the name might itself justify. The system needs to be maintained properly throughout the year as it has one of the biggest databases of the medical facility and the PACS administrator has to ensure so. Whenever a digital image is captured during the treatment or diagnosis of every patient, it is stored for future as well as present purposes. 

So, understanding the managing of the storage of that digital data becomes one of the most essential parts of your job. So, a majority of your tasks revolve around the same zone. Other include:

1. Providing technical support for the system
2. Managing the PACS system and ensuring that it is kept up to date and is maintained well.
3. Communicating with the other staff members about the digital images when required
4. Improving the PACS system by the means of creating systems that are easy to use by the other staff and also assisting them with the system.
5. Training the people to use the system efficiently in order to add and retrieve the data that they require.
6. Ensuring that the system is well informed about the latest technological updates and responds to them in the right manner.
7. Maintenance of all end users of the system and ensuring that every profile is clean and secure.
8. Pac administration and to look into the configurations of the network of the system.
9. Managing the data and archiving of the same
10. Re-assess the needs of the system on the daily and ensure that they are being met by inputs of other technical staff.

What are the prerequisites?

Once that you are thorough on the PACS administrator job description, it is important to understand the prerequisite and the qualifications to become one in the near future. As expected for any other job, you would require graduation in a field pertaining to information technology or IT. 

Alternatively, you can also bag a degree in the medical field. The fields that are preferred for a PACS administrator include Radiology, computer engineering, engineering in information technology, or electronic engineering. This is because these courses give you a heads up about the systems and the technology that you are going to face during the course of your career undergoing PACS administration. 

Another notable factor is that to become a PACS administrator, you can look for courses that specialize in the same. Many universities and colleges offer colleges that deal especially with the PACS system and train you for that essentially. The only difference in the various courses is the various types of technologies that you’ll be taught to handle. With these skills in hand, becoming a PACS administrator is nothing but a cakewalk.

What salary can be expected?

As opposed to the general notion that PACS administration is the job of a random technician and not a specialist, this sphere has recently seen a lot of growth in the demands as well as the money that various institutes are ready to offer for the above specified PACS administrator job description. 

However, the varying factors in the salary would be the experience and the jobs that you would be handling in the due course of your career. As a fresher in this area, you can easily bag a job for about $80,000 per annum. This is a fairly nice amount for a fresher to land up. As you would go through years of practice, your salary could increase to an average of about $90,000 per annum.

However, if you manage to improve your skills throughout the course and be in touch with the upcoming technology, this field can give you an annual salary of a whopping $100,000. You can further increase your prospects by freelancing with your skills, which can land you up to an average of $91 per hour. This stands as a very good package which can be altered based on your skill set and experience in this sector.

What other skills are required?

Other than the technical skills, you are also required to have a lot of interpersonal skills that enhance your personality and make you a good fit for the job. A very important factor for this field is communication. It is the key aspect that sets you apart from other candidates. Since your job involves a lot of communicating and extending help to end users, you need to be especially sure to know all the whereabouts of your field and know about the medical aspect of it as well. 

You need to constantly take the input of end users and for that, you should also be fairly equipped with the knowledge of medical informatics. Other than that, you should read about the latest trends in the IT and the radiology sector since it becomes crucial for your role as a PACS administrator. This will ensure that you are up to date about all the information that is expected of you as a PACS administrator and this will further help you become what you long to be. 

Are you interested in the medical administrative assistant job description? Learn more about the job description and responsibilities of this vital role in the healthcare industry.