PACS Administrators have many groups of PACS users to define preferences for:
Radiologists—These users require more individual preferences, so you can also edit preferences for individuals.
Clinicians—Often PACS systems have hundreds of clinicians, often with specific needs of their own, such as Surgeons, Cardiologists, and so on. IMPAX allows PACS Administrators to edit these groups of clinicians without having to build the preferences for each individual user.
Technologists—These users, as a group, have their own requirements that differ from radiologists' and clinicians'.
To configure a large group of users, you can define preferences at the role level. To configure individuals, you can set preferences for a specific user.
Editing preferences
Some preferences are edited directly in the Configure area - Preferences section. Others you can change only by impersonating a role or user.
Configure area - Preferences section
In the Configure area - Preferences section, you can select specific roles and users and define various options, such as:
Relevancy rules
Search locations
Transmit locations
Reporting solution
Impersonate role or user
When authenticating with a smart card, impersonation is not available.
In the Configure area - Preferences section, right-click on a role or user and select Impersonate. While impersonating a role or user, you retain your permissions, but have that role or user's preferences. Any changes that you make to those preferences in the List area, Text area, or Image area are applied to that role or user. For example, you can impersonate the Radiology role, then define the default worklists for that role or configure the toolbars used for each modality type. Any new users you create in that role inherit the preferences set through impersonation, but existing users inherit them only if you overwrite their custom preferences.
Inheriting preferences
Users inherit their preferences from the roles they belong to. When initially setting up IMPAX, you configure a role and all of the users in that role inherits those preferences.
When a new user or role is created, all of the preferences are inherited from the "parent" role. If a preference is changed in the parent role, that change is automatically inherited by the user (or child role). IMPAX 6.4 assumes that user preferences are more relevant than inherited preferences. User preferences always override inherited preferences.
For example, one radiologist may still be using the analog dictation system, while all others in the department have moved to the voice recognition system. You can select that user and set the dictation option for him. He still inherits the rest of his preferences from his parent role, but now he has a custom setting for the dictation group of preferences. Or a radiologist may change his toolbars in the Image area, which means he no longer inherits the toolbar settings from his parent role.
The Image Area uses two ways to selectively override parent role preferences:
The preferences are grouped into distinct categories (for example, toolbars and screen formats). Inherited preferences are overridden on a category-by-category basis. For example, if a user customizes a toolbar, that toolbar is no longer inherited from the parent role. However, the screen format preferences continue to be inherited as long as they are unmodified. For a list of all Image Area preference categories, refer to Preferences: Inheritance overview.
Within each category, some preferences are further grouped by modality and body part. An example is the toolbar preferences. If a user customizes the toolbar for CT studies, this overrides the CT toolbar for the parent role. However, the toolbar for MR studies is still inherited from the parent role. This type of preference is called a merged preference because settings can be inherited from different roles within the same preference category. For a list of which Image Area preferences are merged, refer to Preferences: Inheritance overview.
 | Note: There is no tool for determining which user preferences are inherited from a parent role and which are user-defined. |
Users and roles that inherit all of their preferences from a parent role are gray in the navigation pane on the Configure area - Preferences section. Users and roles that have custom preferences are white (labeled as Has Configuration in the Configure area - Preferences section). If required, you can revert these custom preferences to those used by a parent role. For example, if a user in the Radiologist role has set some configuration options in the Image area that are interfering with radiology department workflow, you can revert the user to the preferences used by the Radiologist role.
Understanding merged and non-merged preferences
The inheritance of preferences by roles and users in the hierarchy can be merged or non-merged. Merged preferences are summed from all levels in the role hierarchy (similar to filling in the blanks). Non-merged preferences start from the bottom-most level and use the first set of preferences found. For example:
- St. Mary's
- Radiology
- Paediatrics
Malcolm B.
Hanging protocols, for example, are merged preferences. If you want to define hanging protocols for the entire site, you can define them at the St. Mary's role level, and all roles and users below that inherit them, in addition to any hanging protocol preferences set at their level. But, if you define relevancy rules, a non-merged preference, at both the Radiology role and the Paediatrics role, Malcolm only inherits his relevancy rules from Paediatrics. None of the rules defined at the Radiology role are inherited.
For a list of merged and non-merged preferences, refer to Preferences: Inheritance overview.