IMPAX: Key concepts

Users and roles

IMPAX has a single underlying structure. This hierarchy structures the IMPAX world into roles and users and paints a picture of the entire enterprise that the PACS administrator manages:

• A role can represent the Enterprise, the Institution, a Department, or a Team. Roles hold permissions, preferences, and licensing options. They can contain other roles or users, which then inherit these settings.

• Users are individuals, such as a radiologist or a clinician. When you create a user, he or she must belong to at least one role. Users inherit their licensing and permissions from the roles that they belong to. Users also inherit preferences, such as worklist options, reporting configurations, and toolbar settings, from their parent roles.

Refer to Roles and users: Key concepts.

Worklists

A worklist is a container for all the studies that meet a certain criteria. For example, all CT Head studies can go into one worklist. For the site's neuroradiologist, that CT Head worklist is displayed in his List area, and he can begin work on those studies. All of the assembly is already done.

Refer to Worklists: Clinical applications and Relating worklists to department workflow .

Cycling

A key element of worklists is the ability to cycle through the studies in a worklist during interpretation and sign-off activities.

When cycling, studies are placed in the cycle list in the Image area. The cycle list is a stack of things to do, analogous to film jackets. If you are cycling a worklist, when you finish interpreting a study, IMPAX can be configured to automatically move, or cycle, to the next study in the list. When cycling to the next study, the images for the study open in the Image area and the study information appears in the Text area.

Refer to Cycling studies in a worklist.

Study, series, and images

Two main areas affect how studies, series, and images are displayed on the screen, and how you can manipulate them: screen layout and scope.

Refer to Studies, series, and images: How they are related.

Window leveling

Almost everyone using IMPAX clinically will find the window leveling tools particularly useful. In fact, the Window Level tool is often activated by default when study images are first opened for display. Using the Window Level tool, you can change the contrast between light and dark areas of an image or the overall brightness of an image by moving the mouse. This is useful when viewing almost any study.

Refer to Window leveling: Clinical applications.