Radiology Gateway

Automated measurement transfer from ultrasound carts to your PACS

Measurements not coming over?

Modern Radiology Ultrasound carts produce a comprehensive set of measurements. Many PACSs, however, are not preconfigured to parse this new data. To wit:

Implementations of the DICOM SR standard vary from vendor to vendor.
Field mappings are often gears to older model carts, and small alterations to templates have rendered parsers obsolete.
Cart upgrades introduce additional measurements, each requiring unique compatibility adjustments.
Technologists spend valuable patient interaction time hand-entering measurements, exposing data to simple errors.

Contrasting available features against the hard reality of manual data re-entry may lead you to consider semi-automated measurement collection, less feature, and more taunt.

We can help

(Way) back in 2011 we were approached by a cardiac instrument vendor to help solve exactly this challenge for their clients. The resulting product is a dedicated SR-to-SR gateway that:

Retrieves both ASE standard and non-standard measurements from DICOM SR output
Formats these collected measurements into widely-compatible SR templates
Outputs these templates for storage into popular echo PACSs

Radiology Gateway can do this for many brands of instruments, as well as most PACSs. It’s both our specialty and our pleasure to ensure yours are supported.

How does it work?

Radiology Gateway (RGw) sits on your network where it is accessible from both your carts and your PACS:

Your carts are configured to point to RGw instead of, or in addition to, the PACS, whereby,
RGw receives and parses measurements from incoming DICOM SR pay- loads, and
It creates compatible DICOM SR messages and transmits them along to your PACS.
If RGw receives any instances that it cannot parse, it merely passes them along.

What is the impact on the technologist?

There are many ways that technologists can be positively impacted, some of them include:

Not having to spend time with data entry, technologists can focus on patients and, often, reduce the number of trips to and from the examination room.
Depending on your particular workflow, technologists may not require continuous access to the PACS. Optional visual confirmation can still be performed, but is not required for proper storage.
Reduced time spent with each study means that the pace of hiring is reduced as your facility expands.
It’s no secret that manually inputting long series of numbers is frustrating – the gateway can help improve morale.

Properly formatted data

Radiology Gateway data is complete:

We have partnered with both vendors and clients to ensure that measurements are properly mapped into compatible fields.
Many unit conversions are handled automatically.
Proprietary data stored inside private DICOM tags is extracted into public SR attributes.

Does it void the PACS warranty?

No. The gateway is middleware. It requires no re-configuration of the PACS, and transmits over a compliant DICOM interface. From the perspective of the PACS, it looks just like another cart – except that it emits compatible structured reports.

How to get in touch.

If you think the Radiology Gateway is the right tool for your needs then please contact us and we will provide you with a time-limited demonstration copy.

Supported Modalities

Many brands and models of DICOM SR-capable Ultrasound cart

Supported PACS Systems

Any PACS capable of receiving DICOM SR

Network Services

US Storage SCU/SCP
SR Storage SCU/SCP
Verification SCU/SCP

Basic Specifications

Windows executable, runs as a system service
Receives instances as a Store SCP
Converts DICOM SR measurements into compatible formats
Transmits to PACS via a DICOM interface

System Requirements

x86 or x64 CPU at 2 GHz minimum
2 GB memory for 32-bit and 4 GB for 64-bit operation
Windows XP SP3, Vista, 7, 8, 2003 Server, or 2008 Server
200 MB of storage, for binary and ﬁrst three years of log ﬁles
TCP access to both modality and destination PACS systems