Scheduled Workflow

Scheduled Workflow (SWF) integrates the ordering, scheduling, imaging acquisition, storage and viewing activities associated with radiology exams.

Summary

Scheduled Workflow establishes a seamless flow of information that supports efficient patient care workflow in a typical imaging encounter. It specifies transactions that maintain the consistency of patient information from registration through ordering, scheduling, imaging acquisition, storage and viewing. This consistency is also the foundation for subsequent workflow steps, such as reporting.

Benefits

Reduce Errors and Enhance Patient Care

Prevents manual data entry errors by ensuring that a particular piece of data is entered only once
Prevents complications from patient allergies or pregnancy status since these details are made available to all systems involved in the radiolgoy workflow
Prevents delays in patient care by making relevant information available at the point of care.

Improve Throughput

Saves manual data entry time by ensuring that a particular piece of data is entered only once
Minimizes "lost" studies by ensuring study identification and status is accurately tracked throughout the department.
Reduces staff time wasted identifying and correcting errors (in a coordinated fashion) among the HIS, RIS, PACS and modality

Reduce Deployment Cost/Time

Prevents custom interface specification time and expense—IHE TF provides a detailed specification for a powerful interface, supported and tested by many vendors
Prevents custom interface implementation time and expense—many IHE Integration Profiles are already supported by many vendor products
Reduces interface compliance testing time and expense—many implementation variations have been refined in systems tested at IHE Connectathons
Reduces intersystem testing time and expense—many combinations of systems have already been directly tested together at IHE Connectathons
Reduces custom interface maintenance time and expense by maintaining a single interface (IHE) instead of multiple custom interfaces

Details

<Editors NOTE: Raw material extracted from the User Handbook. Some additonal massaging is still needed.>

The SWF and PIR Profiles ensure that patient demographics and order and procedural information are correct and consistent. They allow images to be available for review in a timely fashion. Modality operators use the MWL to query and retrieve the relevant patient demographics and scheduled procedure information from the RIS. Patient name changes should not be made on the modality. The RIS is the primary information source and is capable of managing name updates, as long as the modality does not introduce additional unexpected changes. To ensure the most timely and correct patient information, the Worklist should be re-queried just before starting a new exam in case patient or order details have changed. The modality operator should verify that the right patient is selected for each examination.

In unscheduled cases (e.g., emergency patients), patient names and identification (ID) numbers may be unknown. As these are required to commence the procedure, they will need to be selected from a predefined list of temporary patient and names and IDs and entered at the modality. In such unscheduled cases, the AN, a key identifier for the imaging order, must be left blank. Later, when the correct patient ID, name and Accession Number are known, the RIS and the PACS will reconcile the image information with the correct values.

Systems Affected

Systems involved in this profile are:

Enterprise-wide information systems that manage patient registration and services ordering (i.e., admit-discharge-transfer (ADT)/registration system and hospital information system (HIS ))
Radiology departmental information systems that manage department scheduling (i.e., radiology information system (RIS))
Radiology image management/archiving (i.e., picture archiving and communication system (PACS))
Acquisition modalities

Actors & Transactions:

Specification

Profile Status: Final Text

Documents: IHE Radiology Technical Framework:

Vol. 1 - Section 3 documents the profile
Vol. 2 - Sections 4.1 to 4.8, 4.10 to 4.14, 4.16, 4.18, and 4.20 to 4.21, document specific transactions. Appendices A, B and D provide additional requirements and suggestions on mapping information to ensure consistent flow of information throughout the department.
Vol. 3 - Sections 4.42, and 4.48 to 4.49 document specific transactions.

Underlying Standards:

DICOM
HL7

Scheduled Workflow

Contents

Summary

Benefits

Details

Systems Affected

Specification

See Also

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