Quality Control

A PACS environment is composed of several other entities besides the PACS system itself. The PACS has to exchange information with modalities, other DICOM stations and DICOM printers to name but a few. Each one of these products performs a different job and chances are that it was created by a different manufacturer. Even though standards exist for exchanging information, this exchange is not always perfect. As a result of manufacturer incompatibilities or operator error, problems can arise. Due to these reasons, Quality Control work has to often be performed before the patient data is ready to be used.

The first section of the Quality Control topic deals with the removal of data from the system. The How Do I Delete a Patient? section provides instructions on how to completely remove a patient and all of the data associated with that patient from the system. The How Do I Delete a Study? section explains how to remove a specific study from the system. The How Do I Delete a Series of Images? section outlines how an individual series of images can be removed from the system. If it is only a single image that needs to be deleted, the topic How Do I Delete Individual Images? covers that procedure. Finally, the How Do I Change the Positioning of Images? section explains how to change the positioning of images being viewed.

When new study data arriving at the system conflicts with information already found in the database, it has to be temporarily altered in order to be stored. Such studies are marked as conflicts and need to be manually fixed by a QC user. The information on how conflicts occur and how they can be resolved is presented in the How Do I Manage Conflicts? topic.

The next group of topics deal with moving data that has been filed into the wrong location. If an image is accidentally placed into the wrong series of images, it must be manually moved to its proper location by the QC user. The How Do I Move An Image from One Series into Another? topic describes this process. If a series of images is accidentally placed into the wrong study, it has to be moved to the right location. The procedure for doing this is described in the How Do I Move a Series of Images from One Study into Another? section. If a whole study is associated with the wrong patient, it can be moved to the right location by following the directions given in the How Do I Move a Study from One Patient to Another? section.

The following topic in the Quality Control section deals with grouping studies that belong to one patient but have been assigned to separate patients. This can occur due to a patient changing their name in between visits, or a simple typing error during data entry. Fixing this issue is documented in How Do I Merge Two Patients?

Sometimes when troubleshooting DICOM issues, a user will have to view the DICOM Header of an object. The How Do I View the DICOM Header of an Object? section explains how to view the header of any DICOM object stored in the system.