Mentor : Barry Levine
Abstract
This project is aimed at extending the existing Radiology Module (2013) for OpenMRS – computer software for electronic medical records – from using Xebra PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) – a currently unsupported light weight medical imaging service - to dcm4chee medical imaging archive – a widely used open source medical imaging archive conforming with the DICOM standard - in conjunction with Oviyam/Weasis( DICOM image viewers) to form a PACS system as well as extending its basic functionality. The project required the understanding of the existing code base to remove inconsistencies and errors occurring due to changes in the code build architecture and also to resolve dependencies between DICOM toolkit applications and to finally upgrade the module to comply with the requirements of the latest version of the OpenMRS framework and community development practices. Additionally, several functionalities and interfaces were designed and implemented to satisfy the complete workflow from a physician’s perspective while ordering a Radiology exam on a patient.
This radiology module of OpenMRS is a module compliant with current DICOM and IHE radiology workflow standards. It facilitates the addition of radiological orders to form modality worklists available to various modalities to provide seamless porting of patient information. It also provides listeners to receive updates from modalities of the status of the order and storage commitment of images supplied by various modalities to form radiology studies. These functionalities are performed in accordance with the DICOM standard and follow the basic IHE radiology workflow. These features along with existing OpenMRS functionalities provide the basis for a Radiology Information System that can be easily deployed to improve the delivery of healthcare.
Objectives
- Analyze existing code structure and layout.
- Port existing code structure from Ant based layout to Maven based layout.
- Create radiology orders/worklists from OpenMRS and transfer these worklists to dcm4chee via HL7 messages.
Update the status of an order as and when it is performed during the course of its execution.
Launch appropriate viewers to view images and add observations to these studies.
Features
Some of the usability features are implemented/carried over from the previous Radiology Module (2013) :
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- Ported to Maven build archetype.
- Spring binding issues resolved.
- dcm4chee libraries included in maven's pom.xml along with the versions linked to their public maven repository.
- Using OpenMRS 1.9 Obs and Order structure. OrderType and Roles support necessary to launch module.
- Could be ported to OpenMRS 1.8 with changing dependency versions and minor change in code.
- Removed packaging of Xebra PACS and Weasis from Radiology Module (2013).
- Using latest version of dcm4che2 toolkit application 'dcmof'.
- Using latest version of dcm4che 3.0 toolkit application 'hl7snd'.
Requirements
OpenMRS Version : 1.9.0 - 1.9.7 (tested across these versions)
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Browsers : Chrome. (Oviyam 2.0 is not usable in Firefox)