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PARCA's 3rd Annual Meeting Held at PACS 2007
PARCA was recently represented at PACS2007 in San Antonio. This was the first time we  had a booth at a PACS conference and it was a great success to be able to meet so many of you personally and answer your questions.
We also held our 3rd Annual Meeting during the week. The meeting was chaired by Advisory Board Member Herman Oosterwijk. Herman led the group through some interesting statistics about the differing backgrounds of PACS System Administrators and pointed out that SA's report to a variety of different departments. These differences validate the need for certification to help employers evaluate the skill set of a PACS SA.
There was a lively discussion and a very interesting question and answer session. One of the many questions put to the floor was, how does the SIIM certification differ from PARCA? Several attendees felt that the SIIM exam seemed to be generated more from an academic perspective while PARCA deals more with the guts of what an SA deals with in the real world. Herman stated that there appeared to about a 40% overlap in content between the CIIP (SIIM certification) and PARCA.
It was mentioned that the emergence of CIIP validates what PARCA has been doing: There is a definite need for certification in the field. An important point made by the group was that all certification programs help to create more serious training and build a better community for PACS System Administrators.
PARCA has had over 500 members join since it was formed 2 years ago. The following shows the number of people who have acquired the different certifications as of March 2007.
CPAS - 106
CPIA - 11
CPSA - 26
CPIA & CPSA - 9
Click here to see the meeting presentation slides.
CPSM Certification now available!
PARCA is pleased to announce that our long-awaited CPSM exam is now available! This is the highest level exam PARCA offers and is available to those members who have passed all other exams - CPAS, CPIA and CPSA.
The CPSM builds on the skills acquired as CPIA and CPSA. The focus is on detailed  technical understanding of the imaging chain, advanced standards understanding and strong network and security knowledge.
The exam is in two parts. Part 1 is similar to other PARCA exams with 100 multiple choice questions. Upon successfully passing Part 1, you will have to perform a hands-on exercise whereby you will set up a VPN connection to the secure server, communicate with that server and answer several security related questions. You will be allocated a time slot of 24 hours to complete this exam.
Click here to check out the full CPSM requirements. This exam is available for the specially discounted rate of just $350 until May 1st.
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