The headline is a bit sensationalistic but the reality is that veterinarians must remember that when they buy a digital radiography system, they are buying a computer and not an x-ray machine. X-ray machines last 20-30 years. Computers, like toaster ovens, microwaves, The Postal Service, and Tiger Woods’ marriage will likely last only 5-7 years.
All computers and their software become outdated. Sometimes this is because the software becomes outdated and you want/need new features. Other times it is because the hardware is outdated or fails. I would be willing to be that you are not using the same computer or operating system you were 5 years ago. 5 years ago there were no iPhones. 5 years ago nobody was talking about practice managment integration. The point is that technology changes rapidly and things become outdated quickly.
This 5 year countdown to obsolescence (digital senescence?) is just a fact of life in the digital age. Please do not hammer on your digital radiography vendor. It is not their fault. Digital radiography vendors cannot reasonably be asked to support systems that are more than 5-7 years old. Think about it. Is it reasonable to ask these vendors to stockpile hundreds of flat panel detectors or CR machines so when your machine breaks they can send you a new one? Of course not. These vendors do not make the systems they sell. When the manufacturer stops supporting these systems so will your veterinary vendor.
To complicate matters, digital radiography systems run on computers using the Windows operating system. At some point in the future, the digital machine that you just bought, which is running on Windows XP, will crash and you will need to buy new software to run on whatever Windows operating system is available at the time. Even Microsoft will not support Windows XP after 2014. Stated another way, in 5-7 years you are going to need to buy new software for your digital system and/or hardware for the sole reason that you will need an upgrade to move to a new Windows platform.
Many veterinarians are under the false impression that their service contract which can run as high as $6000.00 per year will cover future software and hardware upgrades. Many of them do not. I predict that many vendors will simply stop renewing service contracts (particularly on DR panels) in the near future. That is correct, you will pay upwards of $25,000.00 in service contracts over 5 years and when it comes time to renew, your vendor will tell you that they are not renewing your contract and if your machine breaks it is time to buy a new one. Again, do not blame the vendors. This is life in the digital age.
The veterinary experience so far:
If the past is any predictor of the future, this notion of 5 years before you will need a major upgrade or replacement for your system is valid. One vendor just end of lifed a DR platform they were selling 2 years ago and are charging a steep upgrade fee of $50,000.00*. Another vendor is updating their CR system with a new software package for approximately $10,000.00**. Other vendors have come and gone and these vets are left holding the bag and they need to replace their system entirely if the system goes down.
Put this information to use:
OK. So now you know that your digital machine will be outdated in 5-7 years. Does that mean you should not go digital? Of course not. There are many good reasons to go digital. Just be sure, you do two things:
- If you have not purchased your digital radiography machine yet, be sure that you do not overspend and buy features or systems you do not need. Maybe stretching to buy that $80,000.00 DR system with the $6000 per year contract does not make as much sense as the $40K CR machine knowing that you may be buying a new system in a few years.
- If you own a digital radiography machine, plan for obsolescence. Be sure your images are backed up in a format that you can use to port them over to a new server. BEWARE most image backups do not allow you to move your images to a new system without first converting them to a DICOM format***.
* Urban Dictionary Definition YIKES: a word used to express excitement or basically any other possible emotion. For example, "Mackenzie broke up with Matt" - YIKES or "I just threw up 38 times"- YIKES
**Idexx just upgraded their old and outdated CR platform. This might seem like a steep price but it is better than buying a new machine. If you have the old Idexx CR scanner please stop reading this and run as fast as humanly possible to the nearest phone and get this upgrade. You will be glad you did. You might not realize it but your images were acceptable in 2002 but they are subpar compared to modern CR systems. You need this upgrade to modernize your system. GO. NOW!
***If you are worried about your remote archive or backup or you are looking for a backup solution, might I suggest The DVMinsight Image Bank. Please be aware that you just read an advertisement for a fantastic and uniquely cost effective remote archive solution at our sister company - DVMinsight. I mention this because I wanted to be sure that you are aware of all of our business relationships any time there is a potential conflict of interest so you can make educated purchasing decisions. Another option to consider is our advertisers solution at SimonBackup. There are others out there as well. Please do your due diligence and resarch your data backup as you would any other purchase.
