Description:
This example will create a mode for adding a note to your exam in PACS. The note could be used to give your radiologist needed information about the study, to explain some sort of variance from a norm, or any other scenario you can imagine where having an easy method to add a text note to an exam would be helpful. This example will start with a minimum of configuration option to accomplish this task and then add on additional options to improve it even more. The end goal will be to have a mode where the user can easily type in some text into an electronic form and have it turned into an image in PACS.
Build it!
Let's start off by copying an existing mode n your INI file which we already have working. So, pick one that is similar to how you want to query for adding notes. In this example we will copy a mode which is used to query for CT exams in your archive by accession number:
[CT - Today (Accession)] ModeDescription=Search for today's CT exams by accession number. DefaultDICOMSearchMethod=Accession ModeWorkflow=Query DicomSearchModality=CT DicomSearchDateRange=Today QuerySource=Archive StoreArchive=Archive SeriesNumber=999 SeriesDescription=Scanned Documents SourceOptionScan=True SourceOptionImport=False
The first thing we would do is open the INI file and highlight and copy the mode, paste it underneath the existing mode as a new section and give it a new name & description. Note we have only changed the first two entries in the new mode below.
[Add Note to an Exam] ModeDescription=Search for a recent exam and add a note to it. DefaultDICOMSearchMethod=Accession ModeWorkflow=Query DicomSearchModality=CT DicomSearchDateRange=Today QuerySource=Archive StoreArchive=Archive SeriesNumber=999 SeriesDescription=Scanned Documents SourceOptionScan=True SourceOptionImport=False
Next we will:
- Blank out the modality search option so we can search for any modality.
- Expand the date range for the search to look at exams done today and 5 days prior to today. We are doing this since we might need to add a note to an exam done prior to today.
- Change the series number to "1" so that the note is displayed left most in the PACS thumbnail views (depends on your PACS).
- Change the description to something more appropriate.
[Add Note to an Exam] ModeDescription=Search for a recent exam and add a note to it. DefaultDICOMSearchMethod=Accession ModeWorkflow=Query DicomSearchModality= DicomSearchDateRange=5-Today QuerySource=Archive StoreArchive=Archive SeriesNumber=1 SeriesDescription=Note SourceOptionScan=True SourceOptionImport=False
Now we need to start adding in new options so the mode will be useful for electronic forms:
- Disable the "Scan" button with: SourceOptionScan=False
- Enable the "Import" button (temporarily) with: SourceOptionImport=True
- Enable the electronic "Forms" button by adding: SourceOptionForms=True
[Add Note to an Exam] ModeDescription=Search for a recent exam and add a note to it. DefaultDICOMSearchMethod=Accession ModeWorkflow=Query DicomSearchModality= DicomSearchDateRange=5-Today QuerySource=Archive StoreArchive=Archive SeriesNumber=1 SeriesDescription=Note SourceOptionScan=False SourceOptionImport=True SourceOptionForms=True
The next step is to make our electronic form. In this example we downloaded an image that looked like a piece of paper to use as the background for our Notes page. Follow these steps to add the form to your mode:
- Run DocScanFX, select the new mode we are creating ("Add Note to an Exam"), and perform a search for a patient's exam. Note that we won't be storing any images to this exam in PACS so we can choose any exam.
- Click the "Next" button in DocScanFx to proceed to the image acquisition screen.
- Click the "Import" button. Then select and import the image for the Notes background.
- Right click on the thumbnail image and choose the option to "Convert to Form" as shown here:
- You will be prompted to save the image in your Forms folder. Name it something descriptive like "Exam Note".
- Since your mode doesn't have electronic forms enabled you will be prompted to turn it on. Click "Yes" when the following prompt appears:
- Open your INI file and take note of the new option and section that have been added:
[Add Note to an Exam] ModeDescription=Search for a recent exam and add a note to it. DefaultDICOMSearchMethod=Accession ModeWorkflow=Query DicomSearchModality= DicomSearchDateRange=5-Today QuerySource=Archive StoreArchive=Archive SeriesNumber=1 SeriesDescription=Note SourceOptionScan=False SourceOptionImport=False SourceOptionForms=True FormsSection=Forms-Add_Note_to_an_Exam [Forms-Add_Note_to_an_Exam] 1=Exam Note.jpg|Exam Note|Form added on 2018\03\14
- While you have your INI file open, disable the "Import" button by changing: SourceOptionImport=False
- Save your INI file.
- Now we need to add sections where a user can type on the form.
- Close out of DocScanFx and run it again. Select this new mode again, perform a search, choose an exam, and click the "Next" button.
- Click the "Forms" button and find the new "Exam Note" form.
- Right click on the form and choose "Edit Form Template"
- We are going to add a two fields to the form. One will be multi-line text field for typing our note text and the other will be a drop down list for choosing the name of the person leaving the note.
- On the Form Editing screen choose "Text - Multi-line" and "Medium" size.
- Click the "Add" button and then click and hold down the left mouse button in the upper left corner of where you want to begin the text entry on the image and drag to the lower right corner and release so there is a box around the area for the text. Like this:
- The box you selected will be replaced with fake Latin to show how large the text will be and where it will be placed.
- Now choose "Dropdown Select" and "Large" and in the "Field Text" section type all the names of people who might use this form to enter a note on separate lines.
- Then click "Add" and drag a box in the area where the user's name should be added. Like this:
- The drop down box field will be shown in yellow and whatever portion of the names from the Field Text area will be added separated by commas. When the form is actually used this will be turned into an actual drop down list to choose from.
- Click Save to return to the main DocScanFx window.
- Let's test the form.
- Click the Forms button to open the electronic forms selection screen.
- Fill out the form and click the Close button at the bottom of the form to submit it. Here's our example:
- The form will appear as an image in DocScanFx. Note that you can click the Revert button to change any of the textual data in the form.
(Note that the "Import" button is shown in these example images, but if the INI options were used as shown above this button will not appear.)
Fine Tuning
If you want to edit any aspects of the form return to the Forms selection screen, right click the form and choose to edit it again. For more information on creating forms reference this forms instructional page. For now, let's assume the form is fine and improve the workflow for using it some more.
Since the only purpose of this mode is to use a form, let's save the user a mouse click and have the Forms selection screen open automatically:
- Add this option so the Forms selection screen auto-opens: ForceMagicFormsOpen=False
- Test it out!
Remember the new INI section which was added when you created your form? It looked like this:
[Forms-Add_Note_to_an_Exam] 1=Exam Note.jpg|Exam Note|Form added on 2018\03\14
We can adjust the last two pipe delimited phrases so make the form more user friendly:
- "Exam Note" shown in the example above is the name which will show up under the thumbnail of the form. We'll change it to "Add an Exam Note".
- The "Form added on 2018\03\14" is the text that shows up when someone hovers over the form. We'll change this to a descriptive phrase so the end user knows when to use this form.
We can also change the name of the form section so it's not so mechanical with all those underscore characters. You just have to ensure you update the FormsSection INI option to same name you use in the referenced forms section. Here's an update of all the INI changes we've discussed so far:
[Add Note to an Exam] ModeDescription=Search for a recent exam and add a note to it. DefaultDICOMSearchMethod=Accession ModeWorkflow=Query DicomSearchModality= DicomSearchDateRange=5-Today QuerySource=Archive StoreArchive=Archive SeriesNumber=1 SeriesDescription=Note SourceOptionScan=False SourceOptionImport=False SourceOptionForms=True ForceMagicFormsOpen=False FormsSection=Forms-Notes [Forms-Notes] 1=Exam Note.jpg|Add an Exam Note|Use this form to add a note to an exam in PACS
Finally, if you are using DocScanFx in a PACS integrated mode where you click on a button in PACS to launch DocScanFx then a mode is probably automatically being chosen. If you want to be prompted to choose a mode you can set this INI option in your [COMMON] section: AlwaysForceModeSelection=True
