In the digital era of radiology, picture archiving and communication
system (PACS) has a pivotal role in retrieving and
storing the images. All components supporting digital systems
including local area network, data base servers, and
digital archives require a disaster recovery (DR) plan in order
to minimize the duration of disruption in the event of loss of
information technology (IT) infrastructure. The current
adoption of full-scale electronic medical records (EMR) by
health care practices has accentuated our dependence on
continuous function of the underlying IT.
Modern radiology departments cannot operate if they lose
their IT infrastructure for any reason, and these departments
could be affected by natural disasters [1–3] and by minor or
major technical failures. In 2001, a group of IT industry
analysts reported the most important causes of down time
in order of frequency: planned downtime, application failure,
operator error, and operation systems failure were the most
frequent, with hardware failures, power outage, and natural
disasters classified near the end of the list [4]. Furthermore,
the health insurance portability and accountability (HIPAA)
security rule identifies contingency as a standard under administrative
safe guards [5]. Identifying the operational and
financial impact of any disaster in the radiology practice can
provide a key basis for investment in DR strategies.
The DR solution for PACS is simply defined as any
configuration to the system that will provide an extended
uninterrupted access to images under various stresses. Fundamental
in DR is to have multiple, redundant, and synchronized
copies of data in at least one separate physical location.
Various issues must be addressed when designing an appropriate
DR solution including availability of a (1) suitable