Vendor Neutral Archive

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What Does Vendor Neutral Archive Mean?

A vendor neutral archive (VNA) keeps medical images in a standardized format within an interface, for the purposes of interoperability and free transfer. Although the vendor neutral archive is generally used in the health care industry, the same concept could be extended to any type of industry or use case where multiple stakeholders need a consistent, standardized way to share images.

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Techopedia Explains Vendor Neutral Archive

Part of the context of the vendor neutral archive is the modern health care industry, where the free transfer of information is especially important. Federal initiatives like the HITECH program have been promoting the use of electronic medical records and similar technologies for years. Different health care providers use particular picture archiving and communications systems, or PACs, which can require a lot of work in the processing, filing and retrieval of medical images. The vendor neutral archive helps medical businesses to share images, making clinical workflows easier and more efficient. Vendor neutral archives can benefit hospitals and medical facilities by keeping images in nonproprietary formats.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.