Vendor Neutral Archive

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

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…