mi2b2 User Documentation - Searching for and Requesting DICOM Studies
Overview
Search for Studies
Users can search for patients via Medical Record Numbers (MRNs), and search for studies via these patients or, alternatively, Accession Numbers (ANs). Both of these search tasks follow the same communication diagram to the left.
In mi2b2 client's Tab 1, users can enter a list of MRNs and search on the PACS to find the list of corresponding patients. Once the list of patients is found, users can use these patients to find a set of DICOM studies corresponding to these patients. Alternatively, if the users already have a list of ANs, they can enter them in Tab 2 and search on the PACS for these studies. Finally, after a list of studies is obtained, users can select the desired ones and request the studies to be copied to the remote repository (cache).
Request Studies
mi2b2 client sends requests to the mi2b2 server, which, in turn, asks the PACS to copy these studies into mi2b2 server's repository (cache). The copying of studies is done via the DICOM C-Move directive, and it is executed asynchronously by mi2b2 server. Because accessing clinically utilized PACS may impact their performance, mi2b2 is typically configured to only access these PACS during downtime (when volume of clinical use is low). As such, the time it takes to fulfill each request is highly dependent upon the mi2b2 server's configuration, PACS access policy, load, and availability. Once the studies are available in the mi2b2 cache, users can later download them onto their own local machine.
View Requests
As the transferring of studies from PACS to mi2b2 server is asynchronous, users can check the request status by asking the mi2b2 server. This is executed whenever user visits the Request Log tab or click on its "refresh" button.
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After Scouting for Patients
Search by Accession Numbers (ANs)
Users are transitioned to Tab 2 after selecting "Find Studies for Selected Patients" from Tab 1. Alternatively, users can directly enter Tab 2 and enter a list of ANs to search for studies.
Initialization
After Searching for Studies
Users can get to this point either from "Find Studies for Selected Patients" in Tab 1 or by Find "Studies with the ANs in the Text Area" in Tab 2.
View Request Status
After submitting studies to be transferred from PACS to mi2b2 repository in Search for Studies tab, a notification pops up to invite users to go to the Request Log tab. This tab allows users to view the progress of all submitted requests. Since this tab does not periodically check with the mi2b2 server for the latest statuses, users are encourage to visit this tab often or click on the "Refresh" button to get the most recent statuses.
Below is a screenshot of the mi2b2 client's Tab 5. The table shows all requests that have been submitted to the mi2b2 server and their statuses. Users can see what requests have been completed and ready for download, and which ones are still being processed.
Each request has a status (column 2). A request's status typically transitions from Scheduled to Processing to Completed. When an error occurs, the status will be Error. Sometimes not all images in a study are retrievable from the PACS. When this occurs, the status is Incomplete (incomplete retrieval). Although these studies are missing some images, users can still download them. Finally, after a request is canceled, the status is Canceled.
Users can cancel any ongoing request (Scheduled or Processing). Users can delete requests of any status.
When a request is Scheduled, users can adjust the priority (column 6) of ongoing requests. mi2b2 server will fulfill requests with higher priority first, and lower priority last. However, this priority has no effect on PACS availability, nor how soon PACS can deliver the studies to the mi2b2 server.
Request Log UI Layout
Completing a study request means the requested studies are retrieved from PACS and stored in the mi2b2 server repository. If this task is successful, the status for related studies will show Complete. At this point, users can go to the Image Repository tab to download them onto the users' local machines. See Download Studies for more information.