This research project relates to a broader initiative aimed at bringing together information from across data silos. As is often the case, the institution's electronic medical record (EMR), RIS, and PACS don't do a great job of communicating with each other, said presenter Christine Zwart, PhD.
"This lack of communication makes it difficult to define a single story for each exam," she said.
The group created a department data depot to pull together information from department systems and combine it into a single database. They then sought to examine the department's prescan time interval, which covers the time from patient check-in to the start of the exam, Zwart said.
While check-in times were gathered from the EMR, the researchers had several sources to choose from for the exam start time. After exploring the options, they settled on the DICOM header as the preferred start-time indicator and were able to use software originally designed for radiation dose monitoring to collect this time stamp, Zwart said.
The research project has led to "major gains in accomplishing our overall goal of storing information from all of our information systems in a one-record-per-exam central repository," she said.
"In focusing on the multitude of options for defining the prescan interval, we've been able to identify a new and potentially more accurate source than those originally considered," Zwart noted.
