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Links rather than documents

Submitted by Guest on Wed, 31/07/2013 - 15:33
in

Yesterday I was asked to look at the data coming out of the practice's digital xray machine. This resulted in my now knowing that it generates DICOM files at about 12MB per image, and that the practice's current strategy is to export these to jpeg (about 1MB) and (in the current RxWorks system) attach these to the patient.

Research showed that there are plenty of paid and free DICOM viewers and software to batch rename the raw files to something sensible on the basis of the metadata in the DICOM file.

Since one can get a DICOM viewer (and thus are not tied to the software that came with the Digital X-Ray machine and its PC), there is the potential to put the DICOM files into the OPV database.

However, I am somewhat hesitant about adding a 12MB file to the mysql database every time an X-Ray is added.

Then I thought - what if I build a tiny html file that contains a link to the DICOM image and attach that to the patient.  Then when I click on the attachment, it shows a small HTML page containing a link to Rover Gething's X-Ray, and if I click on that, the DICOM viewer fires up and I can see Rover's bones. [Actually I ended up with a redirect so you don't have to click on the link - see the code below.]

So question: does this sound a stupid way to do things?

Yes - one has to backup the attachment folder, but I can do this relatively quickly using rsync or an equivalent that just copies out the new files in the folder.

If fact I am wondering if I shouldn't use this approach to link the 5GB of attachments from the RxWorks system that I am currently loading into the OPV database.

 

Any comments appreciated.

Regards, Tim G

 

Here is the HTML code:

 <!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en-US">
    <head>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;url=http://localhost:8080/DICOM/test.dcm">
        <title>Rover Gething X-Ray</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <!-- Note: don't tell people to `click` the link, just tell them that it is a link. -->
        If you are not redirected automatically, follow the <a type="image/dcm" href='http://localhost:8080/DICOM/test.dcm'>link to Rover Gething X-Ray</a>
    </body>
</html>
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Re: Links rather than documents

Submitted by tanderson on Wed, 31/07/2013 - 16:12.

Sounds fine to me. There is a commercial offering in the works too: http://www.openvpms.org/forum/digital-xray-files#comment-5969

-Tim A

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