PACS Downtime
PACS downtime solution: keep reading when the cloud goes dark
When your cloud PACS or network is unreachable, RadRead keeps radiologists reading locally — a downtime viewer and preliminary reporting workflow with dictation, so urgent studies still get read and results still go out.
The basics
What happens to radiology during PACS downtime?
When a PACS is unavailable — a cloud outage, an internet link down, a maintenance window that overruns — imaging does not stop. Modalities keep acquiring, patients keep arriving, and urgent studies keep needing a read. What stops is everyone's ability to see the images and get a report back to the ordering physician.
A PACS downtime solution keeps that last part working. It holds recent studies somewhere local, presents them in a viewer that does not depend on the primary archive, and gives radiologists a way to produce and deliver a preliminary report. When the primary system returns, the work done during the outage reconciles back rather than being lost or re-done.
Why RadFuzion
Downtime coverage that is already in place
A downtime plan that requires setup during the outage is not a plan. RadFuzion already sits in the imaging path, so the images and orders it needs are local before anything breaks.
Studies are already on site
RadFuzion routes and caches exams as they pass through, so a working set of recent studies is on local disk when the link drops — nothing needs to be retrieved from a system you cannot reach.
A viewer that does not need the PACS
RadRead presents those studies in a browser-based viewer for preliminary reads, served from the local RadFuzion node rather than the cloud archive.
Dictate and deliver results
Full dictation and speech recognition, preliminary report sign-off, and delivery by HL7 ORU, PDF, or fax — so the referring physician still gets an answer during the outage.
Under the hood
Downtime capabilities
- check_circleLocal working set of recent studies
- check_circleBrowser-based downtime viewer
- check_circlePreliminary report dictation
- check_circleSpeech recognition with medical vocabulary
- check_circleHL7 ORU delivery of prelim reports
- check_circlePDF and fax delivery
- check_circleWorklist driven by HL7 orders
- check_circleReconcile work when systems return
- check_circleRuns on-premises, no cloud dependency
- check_circleModality worklist stays available
- check_circleStudies keep arriving and are stored
- check_circleAutomatic forward once the link is back
Downtime is when store-and-forward earns its keep
The half of downtime people forget is inbound. While the archive is unreachable, modalities are still sending — and if nothing accepts those studies they either queue on the modality or fail outright. RadFuzion keeps accepting exams throughout, stores them, and forwards them automatically once the destination answers again, so the backlog clears itself instead of becoming a morning of manual re-sends.
Outages are rarely total, either. A cloud archive can be up while one site's link is down, or reachable but too slow to work with. Because RadFuzion holds studies locally and serves them from there, the reading experience during a degraded link is a local one — which is also why prefetched priors stay available. The same mechanism is described on the RadRead and RadFetch pages.
FAQ
PACS downtime questions
What is a PACS downtime solution?add
It is the combination of local study availability, a viewer that does not depend on the primary archive, and a way to produce and deliver preliminary reports while the PACS is unreachable — plus a path to reconcile that work once the primary system returns.
Can radiologists still read studies when the cloud PACS is down?add
Yes. RadRead serves a working set of recent studies from the on-premises RadFuzion node in a browser-based viewer, with dictation and preliminary reporting, so reads continue through the outage. The built-in viewer is non-diagnostic and intended for preliminary reads.
What happens to studies the modalities send during an outage?add
RadFuzion keeps accepting them. Exams are received and stored locally, and forwarding retries automatically, so once the destination is reachable the queue drains on its own rather than requiring manual re-sends.
How do preliminary reports reach the ordering physician during downtime?add
Through whichever channel still works: HL7 ORU to a reachable system, a generated PDF, or fax through a configured provider. Delivery is configured ahead of time so nothing has to be worked out mid-outage.
Does the modality worklist keep working?add
Yes, if RadList is serving it. Because the worklist is provided by the local RadFuzion node from HL7 orders it has already received, modalities continue to pull accurate patient and order details during an outage of the upstream PACS or RIS.
What happens to downtime work when the PACS comes back?add
Studies received during the outage forward automatically once the destination answers, and the downtime reads are tracked so they can be reconciled or forwarded into the primary workflow rather than stranded.
See the downtime workflow
Open the live preview to walk through local reading, dictation, and preliminary report delivery on sample studies.