Scope and discovery
- How will you inventory the source archive before the project starts?Ask for a sample of the inventory output and how they handle query limits and studies with missing dates.
- Which source and target systems have you migrated between before?Ask for the specific versions, not just vendor names.
- How do you size the archive and estimate duration?Look for an estimate based on study counts, sizes and measured throughput, not a flat price per terabyte.
- How do you handle non-image objects?Presentation states, key images, structured reports, encapsulated PDFs and scanned documents.
- What is out of scope, and what happens to it?Expired retention, duplicates, test patients, unsupported formats.
Data integrity and validation
- How do you prove every study arrived?Ask whether validation compares the source and target directly, or relies on the transfer log.
- At what levels do you validate?Study, series and instance, and when each is used.
- What does the final validation report contain?Ask for a redacted sample. It should account for every study.
- How are failures categorized, resolved and re-checked?Missing, partial, mismatched, rejected and expected differences should each have a defined path.
- Do you check images visually, and which ones?Transcoded, multi-frame and color data carry the most risk.
- What happens after cutover?A final reconciliation, and whether ongoing monitoring is available.
Patient and order data
- How do you handle unmatched and orphaned studies?Reconcile, quarantine or preserve, and who decides.
- Can you apply ID changes during the migration?MRN remapping to an enterprise MPI, issuer of patient ID, site prefixes.
- How do you reconcile with the RIS and EHR?Accession numbers, merge history, demographics.
- Is every change to patient or order data logged?Before value, after value, rule or evidence, and who approved it.
- How do you handle duplicate accession numbers and UIDs?Some targets merge studies that share an accession.
Formats and conversion
- How do you handle transfer syntaxes the target does not accept?Lossless transcoding only, unless lossy is explicitly approved in writing.
- Which proprietary formats can you convert?For example Hologic SCO tomosynthesis to DICOM BTO.
- How do you handle private tags?Preserved, dropped or mapped, and whether the target needs any of them.
- Do you need source system cooperation or vendor licenses?Database access, query/retrieve throughput limits, vendor professional services.
Cutover and coexistence
- How will the migration affect clinical performance on the source?Throttling, schedules, off-hours windows.
- How do you prioritize data?Recent studies and priors for scheduled patients first, or by date range.
- How are delta studies handled before go-live?Studies acquired or corrected in the source after the bulk migration.
- What is the rollback plan if cutover fails?
- How long does the source need to stay available?Read-only access period after go-live.
Security and PHI
- Will you sign a BAA?Required for any vendor handling PHI.
- Where does the work run, and where does PHI go?Inside your network, the vendor's cloud, or a third party's. Ask about temporary copies and logs.
- How is remote access controlled?Named accounts, your VPN or remote access tool, your approval process.
- Who on the vendor's team touches the data, and where are they located?Including subcontractors and offshore staff.
- Do staff complete HIPAA training?And how often.
- What security attestations do you hold?Ask for the report, not the logo. Note whether something is completed or in progress.
- What happens to data on vendor equipment at the end?Deletion process and written confirmation.
Project management and reporting
- Who is the technical lead, and will they stay through go-live?
- How do we see progress during the project?Dashboards or reports, how often, at what level of detail.
- What does acceptance look like?Agreed criteria, written down before the project starts.
- What do you need from our team?PACS admin hours, interface engine changes, network and storage, clinical review of exceptions.
Commercial
- What is the pricing model?Per study, per terabyte, fixed fee or time and materials, and what is excluded.
- What happens if the timeline slips because of the source system?Throughput limits outside the vendor's control.
- Are exception resolution and re-migration included?
- Can you give references for projects of similar size and systems?
From dicomatics.com/resources/pacs-migration-rfp-checklist/. Free to use and share in your own RFPs.