Splitting a studyTopic number: 1425415037514

Split a study that contains images belonging to multiple patients, orders, or procedures. This requires moving some of the images to other orders or procedures.

For example, if a technician forgot to register a new patient at a modality, one study would include images for two separate patients. You would have to split this study to associate the second set of images with the correct patient.

To split a study, identify the following:

  • Source study—The study to be split
  • Target study—The study or studies to move images to. This can be an empty order.
To split a study
  1. From a task or search results list, right-click the study to split and select QC task > Start QC task. Red Q

    Whether QC tasks appear in your To do list depends on the task assignment group you belong to.

  2. From the QC action list, select Split.
  3. Using the Target search criteria, search for the target studies to split some images into.

    For unverified studies, the system automatically provides the results of searching on the patient first and last name. For verified studies, the system automatically searches on patient ID and modality type.

  4. Optionally, to overrule the default lookup of target studies:
    1. Right-click the target search fields and select Customize fields.
    2. Select an item in the Displayed fields pane and click the Details on the selected data element link.
    3. Under Prefill, select No prefill, Value from source, or type a custom value.
      • For a verified patient, Value from source is selected by default for the following fields: Patient ID, Modality type, and Patient date of birth.
      • For an unverified patient, Value from source is selected by default for the following fields: Patient first name, Patient last name, and Patient date of birth.
    4. Save the settings at the user, desktop profile, or system level.
  5. Select the checkboxes of the target study or studies to split the source images into.

    As you select checkboxes, a symbol appears beside the source study. Each symbol differs to uniquely identify each selected target study.

    Source study: Green L symbol

    Target studies:

    Blue circle, yellow caret, orange upside down L symbols

    Note:

    You can split into a maximum of nine studies or orders.
  6. In the top toolbar, click Split.
  7. In the Split dialog, select the first target study to assign source study images to.

    Your cursor is marked with the symbol associated with the selected study (for example, with a blue circle).

  8. In the Image area, navigate among the images, and tag the ones to split by clicking them.

    The images are marked with the symbol corresponding to the selected target study.

    Tip:

    You can tag individual images or an entire series of images. To tag the whole series, tag it in the Clinical sidebar.

    To untag, click the image or the series again.

    Dynamic images such as 3D, MPR, and MIP cannot be tagged.

  9. In the Split dialog, select the next study to reassign images to. Then tag the images in the Image area, as with the previous study.
  10. Repeat as needed. You cannot tag an image with more than one symbol.
  11. Once you have tagged all images to be reassigned, click Split.

    The untagged images remain in the source study.

The images from a single study are now split into multiple studies. The reading workflow is triggered for studies without a report. If your administrator configured the verify review workflow, then, for studies with a validated report, a verify report task is created. For studies with a not validated report, a task comment appears saying to verify the report content.

What happens if you move all images in the source study to other studies? For scheduled source studies with a report, users receive an error message stating that they are not allowed to remove all the images from the source study. If the scheduled source study has no report, the source study is deleted, but the order is kept, along with all attachments. If the source study is unscheduled, the source study and the order, along with all attachments, are removed, unless the study has a report.

Note:

If the study date and time of a study resulting from a split are incorrect, contact your system administrator.

Required permissions: Can perform QC split.

(For more on permissions, see Security roles: Concepts.)